Coronavirus survivors: I fought Covid-19 with a Hong Kong karate champ while mum was in a coma in the UK

South China Morning Post journalist Elaine Ly spent a month in a Hong Kong hospital after testing positive for Covid-19

On the other side of the world, her mother was also battling the disease, on a ventilator

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Elaine Ly with her mother Lien Ly. Both women contracted Covid-19. Photo: Elaine Ly

Published: 7:00pm, 9 May 2020Updated: 11:27am, 21 May 2020

As a journalist, you want to report the story – you never want to be the story. So after weeks of covering the coronavirus crisis, it was a shock to learn I had tested positive for Covid-19.

Unfortunately, though I did not know it at the time of my diagnosis, my story with the disease would soon be taking an even darker turn when it left my 73-year-old mother Lien comatose and struggling for her life.

I had arrived in Hong Kong from Britain on Monday March 23, following a holiday to see my family in Birmingham. The minute the plane landed, my phone blew up with messages about the coronavirus, including an ominous one telling me that loss of taste or smell was a symptom. As I had been experiencing just such a loss, I lined up for a voluntary test before I left the airport. I took the test home and sent it off a couple of days later.

On Friday evening, I received a call from a local number my phone did not recognise. When I picked it up a lady on the other end asked me whether I had been near anybody else since I had arrived back in Hong Kong. When I replied that I hadn’t, she informed me I had tested positive for Covid-19.

Within 48 hours, two health workers in full hazmat suits arrived at my front door and took me to the Prince of Wales Hospital. The ward was hectic, but when the door of my isolation cubicle shut behind me a sense of tranquillity descended. It was not to last.

SCMP journalist Elaine Ly spent 28 days in hospital after testing positive for Covid-19. Photo: Elaine Ly

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Coronavirus survivors: I fought Covid-19 with a Hong Kong karate champ while mum was in a coma in the UK

South China Morning Post journalist Elaine Ly spent a month in a Hong Kong hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 On the other side of the world, her mother was also battling the disease, on a ventilator

South China Morning Post journalist Elaine Ly spent a month in a Hong Kong hospital after testing positive for Covid-19

On the other side of the world, her mother was also battling the disease, on a ventilator