Your ‘summer cold’ could likely be COVID-19, doctors say amid surge
Global News
Gayle Robin was surprised when her sister in California told her in early July she had tested positive for COVID-19, which is rising in Canada, health experts say.
Gayle Robin was surprised when her sister in California told her in early July she had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I thought, ‘Really? It’s summer,'” the marketing and communications professional said in an interview from St. Catharines, Ont.
About a week later while camping, Robin woke up with a sore throat and felt achy later in the day. She thought it was “a summer cold.”
“It never even occurred to me that perhaps it was COVID,” she said.
When she returned home a couple of days later and was still not feeling well, she decided to take a rapid antigen test, which was positive.
Since then, Robin’s partner and his family, as well as some of her friends and co-workers in both Canada and the U.S., have all had COVID.
“Almost every day I’m hearing about someone else who has it or knows someone who has it,” she said.
That because “we’re in the midst of a summer wave of COVID,” said Dr. Andrew Pinto, director of the Upstream Lab, a public health research team at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.