These people had COVID-19. Here's what they want you to know as second wave slams Windsor

It took Paul Dunn and his wife Jean more than two months to recover from COVID-19, andsome symptoms still linger.

The Dunns, who are both in their 50s and living in Windsor,caught COVID-19at the beginning of April, when much was still unknown about the disease. Paul told CBC News that Jean is a personal support worker and contracted the illness from her work.

After hearing that the region saw 127 new cases Wednesday, Paul is warning others with his own tale and said he'sangry that some people still don't think the disease is real.

"To see people dismiss it, to see people make fun of it or it'sa conspiracy for me having lived through it, seeing m wife suffers through it it kind of angers me because it's real," he said.

"If you're someone who catches it and it doesn'taffect you wellthat'sawesome but you wear a mask to protect others that maybe won't be as lucky as you."

Bodybuilder Michael Grayer, 43, who also had a bad case of COVID-19 has a similar message. He told CBC News that people need to "exercise caution."

"It'sout there," Grayer said."I went around on a plane feeling like invincible and I'm super healthy and I got it."

WATCH: Locals talk about their experience with COVID-19

These people have had COVID-19.

4 years ago

Duration 1:01

Locals talk about their COVID-19 diagnosis and urge others to follow public health rules.

70 days to be clear

AfterPaul and Jean's diagnosis, they experienced symptoms for the next60 days. The symptoms varied, he said andincluded extreme fatigue, severe headaches, breathing troubles, brain fog and at times ahigh fever.

"It was bad enough that if I was single, I would have come into the hospital, but I didn't want to leave my wife alone," he said."It took me a long time even after I got my two negatives before I would say that my fatigue finally went away."

He said he officially received two negative tests back-to-back about 70 days after he was diagnosed.

Paul and his wife are among Windsor-Essex's 4,238 total COVID-19 cases. On Wednesday, the region saw a record new daily case count and health officials also confirmedWindsor-Essex'ssecond youngest COVID-19 death of a 27-year-old man.

Following these reports Wednesday, health officials from the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) begged the public to take the illness seriously and stay home.

"It is up to us to keep not only our own families safe, but everyone else safe in our community. I request toyou, I beg you to follow the public health guidelines to bring the cases down in our region," medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed said.

Anxiety and panic

Asthe cases rise once again,Paul said he's worried that he and his wife could catch the virus again and that they might not be as lucky the next time around.

"I'm afraid to catch it again ... you don't know if it would be worse if you caught it a second time or if my body would maybe deal with it better," he said.

While he was sick, Paul said there was a point where he was worried he might die. It was at that moment that he decided when he woke up the next day, he would go to the hospital.

"It was my worst nightand ... as much as I didn't want to abandon [my wife], I started thinking, if I die I'm abandoning her permanently," he said.

But the next morning, he said, was when he started feeling better.

And while he escaped death, he said the anxiety brought on due to the disease was overwhelming.

"My heart was racing ... there was other things that you were hearing about it everywhere and everything was bad," he said.

The panic Paul experienced is similar to what Grayer felt after he returned from a bodybuilding show.

Grayer, who grew up in Harrow but now lives in the Greater Toronto Area, contracted COVID-19 earlier this year after travelling to Washington for work and then to Mexico for a vacation.

When he returned from his trip, he got tested and decided to quarantine away from his family in an Airbnb. It was during that time that the test came back positive and Grayer said he lost his sense of taste.

For the most part, he said, he was sleeping several hours a day.

"Istarted reading all the symptoms ... instant panic like ok it starts with this, in two days how am I going to feel?Three days how am I going to feel?Will I need a respirator? Am I going to get really sick?" he said.

"I'm alone here what if I have some respiratory issue in the middle of the night and no one's around, so it was all like a lot of panic because we hear so much about it ... so I'm like what's going to happen to me?"

Though he's now recovered from the disease, Grayer says his sense of taste is still only at 60 to 70 per cent. But if that's all he walks away from COVID with, he says it's alright for him.