Mathew Kiang (.com)Yes, with one "t".

· 3 min read

It finally happened — I got COVID

Last September, I got COVID. It was wildly unpleasant with serious brain fog that lasted for several weeks even after the other symptoms went away. That said, this did give me the opportunity to make some more plots based on my own data. Below, I show a few metrics of my vital signs (respiratory rate, heart rate, heart rate variability, and body temperature deviation) relative to my exposure (vertical dotted line) for six weeks before and after. The thicker grey lines in the background are the pre- and post-exposure averages for those six weeks.

Four stacked panels titled Impact of COVID-19 on vital signs (N=1), each plotting a daily average against days from suspected SARS-CoV-2 exposure, -42 to about 42, with a dotted vertical line at day 0 and horizontal grey bars marking the pre-exposure and post-exposure averages. Respiratory rate in breaths per minute stays noisy around a pre-exposure average of 16.2 and is fractionally lower after. Heart rate in beats per minute spikes from a pre-exposure average of 65 to about 91 on day 3, falls back within a week, and settles at a post-exposure average of 70. Heart rate variability in milliseconds drops from an average of 34 to a low near 11 on days 3 and 4 and holds at about 26 afterwards. Body temperature deviation in Fahrenheit is flat near 0 before exposure, jumps to plus 1.6 degrees on day 3, and returns to baseline within a week. A note gives the code URL.

As you can see, for a few things, even six weeks after exposure, I did not return to my pre-exposure baseline. My respiratory rate was slightly lower, my average heart rate was (and actually still remains) slightly elevated, and my heart rate variability is still lower (higher is better). My temperature is more or less the same.

All of this resulted in decreased physical activity, which I plot below.

Four stacked panels titled Impact of COVID-19 on physical activity (N=1), each against days from suspected SARS-CoV-2 exposure, -42 to 42, with a dotted line at day 0 and grey bars for the pre- and post-exposure averages. Average activity in MET minutes sits around 1.6 before exposure, drops below it for the two weeks after, then rises above it. High-intensity activity in MET minutes has a pre-exposure average of 337 with frequent spikes to 1,000 and above, then reads exactly zero for about fifteen straight days after exposure before returning, including one day past 2,500. Steps in thousands averages 7 before, dips to 3 to 5 for two weeks, then recovers with one day near 39. Energy expended in Calories averages 3,211 before, drops for two weeks, then returns with a peak past 7,000. In all four the pattern is the same: about two weeks below baseline, then a rebound above it.

I eventually went back to my baseline level of physical activity for all different metrics, but as you can see in the MET minutes metrics, there was a fairly long period of inactivity where it felt like my heart was not ready for intense exercise.

So, COVID-19: 1/10 — would not recommend.