‘It was truly miserable’: Young El Paso woman who survived virus urges people her age to take it seriously

EL PASO, Texas -- A 24-year-old woman who took two weeks to recover from Covid-19 reached out to ABC-7 to share her experience and to urge her fellow young people to do their part to slow the spread of the potentially deadly virus.

Dominique Vasquez first tested negative after her father urged her to get tested when he learned he was Covid positive. She was negative, but tested positive for antibodies.

She went for a second test when she started to feel ill more than two weeks ago.

"I started to wake up with severe body aches where I couldn't sleep because the body aches were so severe," Vasquez said in a video interview on Thursday evening. "I lost my sense of taste, I lost my sense of smell, I started getting headaches and I was really congested and phlegmy. I knew that the virus was actually taking a toll on my body."

Vasquez said she didn't have to be hospitalized and only started feeling better by July 20 -- two weeks after showing symptoms.

"The body aches were so severe that I would roll over and my body would just ache," she said. "My bones and my muscles would ache constantly. I would take hot showers just to relax my body and 20 minutes later I was feeling right back to where I was before. It was truly miserable."

Vasquez said she isn't sure how she contracted the virus because she would rarely eat out, she only shopped for essentials and she didn't go to the gym or bars, adding she was vigilant about hygiene.

But the fact that she still got severely ill despite taking her precautions is why she is urging others her age to heed the warnings.

"I see people (on social media) traveling and going out to eat and having gatherings at home and it just fills me with anxiety because I would hate to know someone that succumbs to the virus or someone who loses a family member to the virus," she said. "(They say) 'If I catch the virus, I'll be fine. I'll survive. How bad could it be?' I just wish that people would really understand how truly severe it is without having to suffer the consequences."