He rode his bike 30 miles, two or three times a week.

He played racquetball three times a week, too.

If he missed a day riding the bike or playing racquetball, he took a walk.

At 62, Hans Guenther was anything but a spud spectator wedged into his couch in front of the TV.

He didn’t smoke.

He didn’t have diabetes or any other significant underlying health conditions.

“I was retired, I was healthy, life was good,” he said.

A few weeks ago, the COVID-19 pandemic started closing doors. This included the Germantown Athletic Club. And that meant Guenther’s Tuesday night routine of playing racquetball and going to dinner with some of his playing partners was disrupted.

The first week the club was closed, restaurants were still open. So, they met at the Germantown Huey’s – per usual, minus the pre-meal racquetball. Like a lot of gatherings of two or more guys, they talked sports and sometimes veered into politics and issues of the day.

On Tuesday, March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day – they were talking about COVID-19 when one of his buddies went for the equivalent of a racquetball kill shot to end the discussion.

“After this is all over,” the man said, “you’re not gonna know anybody who got this.”

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‘Out of the blue’

On Wednesday, March 18, Hans Guenther ate a bagel for breakfast. He felt fine.

For lunch, he had a burger. He felt fine.

Later that afternoon, he was out and about – he stills owns and manages a few apartments – when he began running a high fever with chills and muscle aches.

“Boom!” he said. “It came on me.”

He went home and crashed on the couch. For the next week, he traded his bike for riding a fever roller coaster – spiking all the way to 103.5, falling to 100.5, and then going back up again.

“I thought I had a bad flu.”

What he didn’t have: a cough, shortness of breath or a sore throat.

From watching “those crazy newscasts,” he believed those were the symptoms of greatest concern.

And he wasn’t an alarmist. He hadn’t been really sick for any length of time since he was 18 and in the United States Army.

“Flu shot,” he said. “That took me out. Since then, I’ve never had a flu shot.”

So, he kept taking OTC pain relievers and waiting to get better. He didn’t.

His wife, Melissa, is a registered nurse. When she checked him with a pulse oximeter, which measures oxygen saturation level, his numbers were concerning. She listened to his lungs with a stethoscope.

“I wasn’t clear,” he said.

So, on March 26, eight days after “bad flu” began, they went to a minor medical center. Next stop: Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital by ambulance.

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Where is this thing going?

After about eight hours in the emergency room, he was admitted.

He’d been given a COVID-19 test – a long cotton swab inserted into both nostrils, “stick it halfway up your brain” – but would not have the results for almost 48 hours.

By this time, though, there wasn’t much doubt. “This,” as his friend had called it, casually dismissing COVID-19’s danger, was now in Guenther’s respiratory tract.

He was diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs. He received antibiotics through an IV. He had a tube for oxygen, which he used at his own discretion. They gave him strong doses of Tylenol every six hours.

He had chills and sweats. Lying in his hospital bed, he was constantly throwing the covers off and putting them back on again. His senses of taste and smell left him.

He had no appetite.

“I ate a banana once,” Guenther said. “And ice water was gold. I never turned the damned TV on. I had no desire.”

Even his wife wasn’t allowed to visit him.

Which left him alone with his thoughts:

“Am I going to be one of the statistics? Am I going to be one of those bad statistics?”

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Without a trace

Guenther never had to go on a ventilator. On March 28, two days after he was admitted to the hospital, he was sent home.

For a few days, he was still spiking a fever – albeit lower. Then the fever faded away. So, too, had 13 pounds from his 6-foot-4 frame as he went from 234 to 221.

“That’s not the way to lose weight.”

Guenther had food poisoning once, but he says that was “short-term agony” and COVID-19 was “long-term agony.”

The evening he got home from the hospital, he got his test results and he was positive.

When he left the hospital, his doctor had prescribed a stronger pain medication and a new course of antibiotics.

Eventually, he was on the way back.

On Sunday April 5, there was a knock on his door. A man representing the Shelby County Health Department had come to serve quarantine papers.

Guenther explained his timeline, including that he had now been fever-free for more than three straight days – the benchmark his doctor had given him for the all-clear.

He says the man asked him to sign something confirming the quarantine notice had been served, and left.

Protocol with COVID-19 is that public health investigators work back from every “patient zero,” such as Guenther, to determine where they have been, what they might have touched, and who they’ve been within six feet of for at least 10 minutes – going back two days before first exhibiting symptoms.

Guenther says at no point – either in the hospital, or by the health department representative a week after his release – did anyone inquire about his close contacts.

“Nobody,” he said, “ever asked.”

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Facts and mysteries

As far as he knows, all his buddies from that meal at Huey’s are fine.

And he’s feeling better, though not full-strength; he has taken a couple of shorter bike rides.

So, Hans Guenther has come through on the other side.

He is one of approximately 450,000 people worldwide to have recovered, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

He is now a good statistic.

But questions remain.

He and Melissa had visited Germany and Austria, but were back home by mid-February – a full month before he had symptoms. COVID-19’s incubation period is generally considered to be about three to 13 days.

“We don’t know where I got it,” he said. “I just know I’ve never been so sick in my life.”

He also now wonders about his immunity.

Having had it, is he now forever safe from COVID-19? For years? For months?

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergencies programs, told NPR: “One would expect that a person who generates a full-blown immune response with detectable antibodies should have protection for a period of time.

”We just don’t know what that period of time is. We would expect that to be a reasonable period of protection, but it is very difficult to say that with a new virus.”

If tests prove his antibodies are sufficient, Guenther would like to donate plasma.

“If I can help somebody with their misery,” he said, “done.”

Meantime, he is easing back into life. The other day, wearing a mask, he went to Home Depot.

“You see half the people wearing masks, half the people without it,” he said. “You know the people without it are not taking this seriously.

“It’s real. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing-plus.

“I promise, you don’t want this.”