(Susan Ormiston/ CBC News) — Julie Thaler throws a homemade yellow cape stenciled with the words Survivor Corps over her shoulders before striding, nearly skipping, into the New York Blood Center.
Thaler, a kindergarten teacher from Westchester County, was part of the first nasty cluster of people infected with coronavirus in New York. Now fully recovered, she hopes the antibodies she has developed in her blood will help patients or front-line workers fight COVID-19.
“I feel like we’re in a science fiction movie,” she said last Friday. “I am one of the ones walking around with immunity, like a hazmat suit Inside my body, protecting me.”
Thaler’s symptoms began raging the first week of March, three days after her school shut down. She suffered “horrific chills like pins and needles,” headaches and a “terrible backache.” When her fever spiked above 102 degrees, (38.9 C), the virus triggered her asthma, which landed her in the emergency department twice. (…)