Tim Seifert contracts COVID for second time in IPL; he broke down in tears last year about the ‘scary’ episode

Tim Seifert, the Delhi Capitals player, has contracted the covid virus for the second year in sucession at the IPL. Seifert was unlucky last year too during IPL, an experience that had left him scared, scarred, and emotionally draining that he broke down in tears during a press conference in Auckland on his return to his country. He was to get married in couple of months time when his world turned upside down with covid.
He had just been told during a lunch break at the team hotel – he was in Chennai Super Kings squad – that he had tested positive when the scare took over. “The world kind of stops a little bit. I just couldn’t really think what was next. And that was the scary part of it.You hear bad things and I thought that was going to happen to me.”
That’s when Seifert broke down into tears and paused to compose himself. “ I had a tiny cough, at the time I thought it was just a bit of asthma. My heart sank straight away when everyone left. I was the only overseas player basically still left in India out of the whole tournament. That’s when things got a little bit real,
India was struggling through the pandemic that period, with hospitals filling up and news saturated with tragic stories of lack of oxygen cylinders. The BCCI would eventually cancel the tournament half-way.

“The news is all about a lack of oxygen, you don’t know if you’re going to be in that situation,” Seifert said. “It’s just the whole unknown of what Covid is, how you’re going to react to it.”
Seifert was then shifted to a hotel linked to a private hospital though he didn’t have to be hospitalised as his condition turned out to be mild. Some cough, loss of smell and taste and bursts of fever.
Soon, things began to turn for the good. “”Once a few days had gone , everything had kind of calmed down a little bit, the New Zealand boys had gone, then I just knew it was a time of getting through it, looking at the positives – getting married in two months, so that’s exciting. And I think my fiancée is quite happy that I’m back a bit earlier so I can help planning for that. So you had to look at the positives, it was just the tough time of the unknown really.”