FSIN 2nd Vice Chief David Pratt urges attention to public health orders after COVID-19 diagnosis

For months now, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations 2nd Vice Chief David Pratt has been wearing a mask, washing his hands, and keeping his “bubble” small.

It’s something he’s also been urging everyone else to do as well.

Still, early Thursday morning, after experiencing becoming sick, he called 811 to get a COVID-19 test arranged. A couple of days later he received a positive result.

“I got chills. I couldn’t warm up. And so what I did was I started getting sinus pressure, headaches, and it continued on into the next day.”

As soon as he began getting sick, he isolated himself -with the exception of going to get a test. He’s been at home ever since. He says he won’t be seeing anyone until at least Dec. 5 or until he gets the all-clear from the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

The 49-year-old says he’s so far feeling a lot better than he was late last week when the first symptoms began and hasn’t had difficulty breathing.

“I’m not experiencing some of the severe effects that some people have gotten which is severe fatigue and tiredness. I’m not having that right now… I’m drinking a lot of water, Pedialyte. My appetite’s been fine. My sense of smell’s not 100 per cent, but it’s not completely gone.”

He’s taking some traditional medicines and will be taking vitamins to try to help with his recovery. Since he announced he had the virus via social media, dozens of people have been reaching out to him to wish him well, including doctors, politicians, friends, family and others.

Pratt says it all means so much to him.

“It feels great. There’s a certain stigma that’s attached with contracting the virus, right? The reason I made the decision to make the announcement was to get ahead of any breaking story, but also to use it as an opportunity to do a PSA (Public Service Announcement) on the importance of being vigilant…We don’t want to swamp our health care system and be over capacity,right?”

For now, he’s staying active at home when he can- walking up and down stairs – then resting when necessary.

“The outpouring of support has been tremendous. Facebook and text messages. Social media has been amazing and I think that’s what people need. They need to feel like they’re not alone.”