LOVE Island’s Anna Vakili said she feared her dad was dead after he collapsed on Boxing Day due to the coronavirus.
The 30-year-old is isolating with her parents and sister Mandi who have all been struck down by the virus over the festive season.
Speaking exclusively to HOAR Online, the ITV2 star explained that she first began experiencing symptoms on Thursday, December 17 and branded Covid as “the worst illness I’ve ever had”.
Despite isolating immediately, Anna said her parents visited her before her positive test result came back and her 69-year-old dad threw caution to the wind by kissing her on the cheek.
But soon after testing positive, the reality TV star said her parents and sister Mandi also contracted the deadly virus.
Although Anna is on the road to recovery, she admitted that her parents are “really bad” – so bad that she and her sister were forced to call an ambulance after their father collapsed.
She told us: “It’s so weird because the first day he got symptoms he was jumping up and down and dancing, and I thought I’m so glad he hasn’t really been affected – it was Christmas Eve I think.
“Suddenly the next day, boom. It hits you and all day he was in bed.
“Then on Boxing Day he must have got up to go to the toilet, and he collapsed and hit his head on the floor – it was the scariest moment of my life!” Anna continued.
“I thought he had died.”
She added: “I ran out of my room because I heard it and I saw him lying there eyes open, having completely lost consciousness and I was screaming and crying”.
“… When the ambulance crew arrived, they said his temperature had got so high that he must have became a bit confused and didn’t have good balance.
“They wanted to take him to hospital but he wouldn’t go, and the following day he was in bed all day.
“Then the day after that was probably his best day – he was out of bed, on the sofa, talking and having a conversation, but today again he’s in bed all day, so it’s very up and down.”
Anna added that she warned her father to not call to her home when she started to feel unwell – however he went against her wishes.
“I suddenly got symptoms and my dad came round and that’s when I think my dad made the biggest mistake because I said,’‘Dad, don’t come into the house. I’m not feeling well.’” she said.
“It was the first day, and he just said, ‘No, no, no’ and gave me a kiss and I’m like, ‘Dad you’re so stupid for doing that you know.’
“I keep telling him that now – you’re so stupid for doing that, but I think sometimes you just don’t think, and that’s what happened. This was all before Tier 4 which suddenly got sprung up on us.”
Anna said she is suffering “waves of guilt” about giving the virus to her family.
“It’s so strange the emotions – it comes in waves, and you get a wave of guilt,” the TV star confessed.
“If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t [have got it], but at the moment I think even just leaving the house, he would have been in danger of getting it. Or picking it up on the train like I did.”
Anna shot to fame on Love Island last summer when she was left heartbroken by her boyfriend Jordan Hames who tried to hook up with another islander behind her back.
During the pandemic she returned to her job as a pharmacist – and has now given a word of warning to anyone suffering with the early signs of Covid.
“Straight away isolate even if it’s the tiniest sniffle – isolate and get a test,” she urged. “I think that’s the safest thing for you and others.
“If you do end up positive the main thing is try to stay positive, because stress is the worst thing for your immune system.
“I put lots of tips on Instagram like which vitamins to take, and home remedies which I think have really helped us as a family and steam inhalations – I did it like five times a day. “
