Clemson’s Xavier Thomas details his long recovery from COVID-19

Clemson football star defender Xavier Thomas details his experience with COVID-19.

Clemson is currently without star quarterback Trevor Lawrence after testing positive for the coronavirus. He missed the win vs. Boston College and he’ll miss Saturday’s game vs. Notre Dame. It’s unknown if he’ll be ready to return after that. If Lawrence’s experience with COVID-19 is similar to his teammate, Xavier Thomas, it’ll be a long time before he feels like he did before getting sick.

Thomas, a former five-star recruit, is one of the better players on the Tigers defense but he’s barely played this year after testing positive for the virus in April. Initially, it was believed Clemson would redshirt him and bring him along slowly in case he didn’t respond.

He’s played sparingly in the last three weeks, making his season debut on Oct. 17 against Georgia Tech where he recorded one tackle. Since then, he’s played against Syracuse and Boston College, picking up three total tackles and two sacks.

Xavier Thomas details long recovery from COVID-19

But as Thomas described to the media on Monday, it took him about six months before he was able to regain normal breathing function.

The long-term effects of the coronavirus are still largely unknown but the initial premise that young athletes in peak physical condition would be perfectly fine, as some politicians and otherwise have preached on social media, is not true as Thomas can attest.

While some who test positive for the virus may never show any symptoms and others like Lawrence are experiencing mild symptoms, in the case of Thomas, his recovery took upward of six months before he began to feel normal again. Even then, he’s not at his peak physical condition that he was at prior to getting sick.

All that goes to say, take all the precautions you can to prevent yourself and others from contracting the coronavirus and don’t dismiss anyone who does test positive as it being just the flu or a common cold. It affects everyone differently and empathy is free.

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