Covid: Bury councillor hit twice by virus 'still not fully recovered'

A councillor who issued a stark warning from his sick bed a year ago for people to start taking Covid-19 seriously says he has "still not fully recovered".

Bury Council deputy leader Tamoor Tariq collapsed and was taken to hospital just before the UK's first lockdown.

Gasping for breath in his 2020 YouTube video, he warned it was not just the old or clinically vulnerable at risk.

Mr Tariq, 31, said he contracted coronavirus again in December and felt "fortunate" to have survived.

The Bury Council deputy leader has urged people to get vaccinated

When he first fell ill last year Mr Tariq said he struggled to talk about Covid because he "felt so drained".

But the Labour councillor said he felt compelled to sound the alarm at a time when some commentators were wrongly downplaying the severity of the novel coronavirus.

Mr Tariq said his message - that someone with no serious health issues could still become severely ill or even die with Covid - really "hit home" with his community.

"It was an awful experience," he told the BBC. "It hit me hard, and that shook people up.

"There were very few cases here then and people underestimated it, including me."

Mr Tariq said it took him weeks to even be able to walk downstairs again and said his energy levels had still not recovered when he contracted the virus for a second time.

"It was 26 December and I knew from the symptoms I had it again - even before I got a positive test," he said.

He recalled a nurse telling him last March if he did get the virus again it would not be so severe.

"It wasn't, but my wife, sister and my mum all got it so it was a very worrying time," he added.

Mr Tariq said his 55-year-old mother ended up in hospital before recovering.

Nearly three months after his second bout of Covid, he said he could still only manage 2km when he goes running, as opposed to the 5km he used to run routinely.

Mr Tariq's mother was initially very sceptical about having the Covid vaccine

Mr Tariq has been campaigning for more members of the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to accept the vaccine, organising events to dispel false information circulating about it and helping to set up a pop-up jab clinic at the Jinnah Day Care Centre in Bury.

"It is our duty to protect ourselves and our loved ones, and the NHS," he said.

The cause is one he feels passionately about, not least because he initially failed to convince his mother to have the jab.

He said she had fallen for "myths" and false information spread on social media about the vaccine.

To his relief a staff member at Bury Council managed to reassure her enough that she has now been vaccinated.

Reflecting on what has been a harrowing 12 months, Mr Tariq said: "I feel very fortunate that myself and my family have all recovered and I am so pleased and proud of the incredible vaccine roll-out."

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