Joseph Flavill does not remember testing positive for the coronavirus last year, nor does he remember anything that happened during the past 11 months.
The 19-year-old Briton has been in a coma since March 1, 2020 after suffering a traumatic brain injury when the student was hit by a car while walking on the street in his hometown, Staffordshire Live only reported on Monday. It will take three weeks to the end of March before the UK enters its first nationwide exclusion from the pandemic.
“We also do not know how much he understands as his accident before the first time, and it is almost as if he has slept through the whole pandemic,” Sally Flavill Smith, Joseph’s aunt, said in a statement.
Many of Flavill’s family were not allowed to see him in person due to pandemic safety restrictions at Adderley Green, a rehabilitation center to which he was transferred after waking up at Leicester General Hospital, where he has been locked up since last year.
“How do you explain the pandemic to someone who was in a coma?” asks Smith, whose nephew has also tested positive for COVID-19 twice – once while unconscious and again during rehabilitation – and recovery.
“We try to keep it as simple as possible,” Smith told the Guardian. ‘We do not really have the time to go into the pandemic – it just does not feel right? If he can really have face-to-face contact, this is the opportunity to really try to explain to him what happened. ”
The family visits Flavill for the first time via video calls, although he gets a brief visit to the house in December to celebrate his 19th birthday with his mother, Sharon Priestley – but he wears personal protective equipment and stays on a safe social distance.
Although it has not been fully restored for a long time, Flavill’s motor and cognitive functions are slowly returning, Smith said. “We still have a long way to go, but the steps he has taken over the past three weeks have been incredible.”