Queen guitarist Brian May says he came down with a breakthrough case of COVID-19 despite receiving vaccinations and a booster shot.
The rock legend has been discussing his experience with the coronavirus on his Instagram page and said that while he is getting better, “the Beast is still in my body” more than a week after testing positive.
The 74-year-old guitarist said he and his wife, Anita Dobson, caught COVID after attending a friend’s birthday lunch ― despite getting three doses of the Pfizer vaccine, according to People. May said that prior to this, he and Dobson had been “hermit-like” for 20 months.
May said he started feeling a little better on Sunday ― seven days after he caught the virus. He added that his immune system is “now winning the battle against the invader” and credited “the enormous help of three Pfizer jabs.”
“So do NOT be afraid - there IS life after Covid! But DO be careful … you do not want this, and neither do your family,” he wrote in a caption.
On Monday, he admitted that he might have been “a little too optimistic” about his health, since his “dry wheezy cough” had returned and he kept falling asleep “not in a peaceful kind of way, but in a ‘I can’t keep my eyes open another second’ kind of way.”
On Tuesday, May ― who holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics ― admitted being fascinated by the science surrounding the virus, and said reading up on it gave him cause for optimism that the omicron variant might be less deadly than other variants.
The variant was first detected in the U.S. in early December, and health officials said it accounted for 73% of new COVID infections last week. While scientists are still researching the variant, preliminary data suggests that it might be more transmissible but cause less severe illness than previous variants.
“It seems (and this is not my idea) that Omicron is very good at procreating rapidly in our throats and sinuses ― but for some unknown reason, not so successful at invading our lungs. So it spreads itself rapidly from person to person through our coughs and spluttering — but doesn’t threaten our lives by stopping us breathing,” May wrote in his caption.
He said if this is true, then the virus could be well on the road to be coming just another cold or flu germ to be dealt with seasonally.
“But it has to be said that this whole pandemic has taught us a thing or two as far as behaving sensibly in the face of such pervasive pathogens,” he said.
May has been promoting the benefits of vaccination for months, and even called out fellow rocker Eric Clapton in August for vowing not to perform where proof of vaccinations are required.
“Anti-vax people, I’m sorry, I think they’re fruitcakes,” May said. “There’s plenty of evidence to show that vaccination helps.”