Former university athlete says COVID stopped him from running — wants people to mask again

A Tecumseh, Ont., native who brought awareness to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by running a marathon while wearing a hospital gown is now dealing with the effects of long COVID. 

Evan Ubene, who's set to graduate with a master's in chemical engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, says last year he was also trying to highlight the need for proper personal protective equipment for health-care professionals.

Wearing the hospital gown ended up breaking a Guinness World Record at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Fast forward to today, the 27-year-old is now attempting to once again raise awareness about the pandemic after contracting the virus for a third time in June — and still feeling the impacts.

The longtime runner competed for McMaster's track and field team for a handful of years.

Ubene addressed his concerns regarding the health-care sector with Windsor Morning host Nav Nanwa.

Here's part of that conversation.

Back in June, when you caught COVID for the third time, what were some of your initial symptoms? 

The symptoms I've been experiencing have been mostly shortness of breath, which is not great for running, and also kind of like muscle weakness and headaches that I kind of get if I exert myself too much. 

But just really quickly, I wanted to mention there are a lot of people who are experiencing symptoms that are far worse than mine, and we could be doing very easy things to drastically reduce this number. 

It wouldn't even really impact our day-to-day lives that much. And as far as like, you know, wearing a mask, that's about it. 

We would cut a bunch of cases down just by doing something like that. And improving air quality is another thing. 

Have you officially been diagnosed with long COVID yet? 

N