Washington (AFP)

After three weeks in quarantine, Justin Jara returns to work Tuesday in his hospital in the American city of Detroit, but he does not really believe the test according to which he has antibodies against the new coronavirus.

"I am afraid of going back to work," he told AFP. "A doctor told me I was immune, but it's not yet scientifically proven."

Like Justin, a 26-year-old nurse, tens of thousands of caregivers in the United States and around the world, infected with the Covid-19 virus and recovering, do not know what they are still at risk. In the United States alone, at least 9,000 caregivers are among the confirmed cases.

They ignore their level of risk, because the virus, Sars-Cov-2, which remains without proven treatment and without vaccine, keeps its mysteries: Will it cause long-term consequences on the lungs, even the kidneys and other organs? Can we be reinfected? And in case of immunity, will it last a season as for colds, or for life as for measles?

Caregivers do not have the option of telecommuting. They are expected on the front: back to the same place where they were contaminated.

Justin fell ill at the end of March, at a time, which seems so old now, when the nurses of his unit did not wear masks, because in theory, she was "clean", without "corona". But one patient, despite a negative test, was in fact infected.

Justin made it through with high fevers, muscle pain and shortness of breath.

He will find a shaken hospital on Tuesday: the 35 beds in his unit are now 100% Covid. Justin had to learn, online, how to use the new ubiquitous oxygen machines. A new rule requires nurses to enter the rooms only a few times a day, except in emergencies, in order to limit the risk of contagion.

And protective gear is absolutely mandatory: masks, visor, gowns, gloves.

"I'm going to be very careful not to get re-infected," says Justin.

- Protect loved ones -

More than a month after his infection, Richard Whelan, 63-year-old colorectal surgeon in New York, has no proof that he has the antibodies, because unlike Detroit, the tests are not yet widely available in the metropolis . His Covid nailed him to bed 12 days, Richard was "floored".

His hospital, Lenox Hill, has canceled non-emergency operations and the doctor is assisting in a 24-bed Covid unit. He wears, like everyone else, masks and blouses.

"I don't want to contaminate my wife and daughter," said the doctor.

The uncertainty also concerns his own recovery. "I don't want to donate my blood plasma yet because I need it, I need my antibodies to protect myself", explains the sixty-something man to AFP, while New York organizes the collection of plasmas from people healed in the hope that they add up the sick.

On the other side of the continent, in Seattle, where the epidemic started early, Terry West, an emergency nurse at a small hospital, acknowledges some "relief" from being part of the first wave and having survived. It resumed on April 5.

But what peace of mind when her husband, who has had lung cancer, remains vulnerable?

"I keep putting on a smock, masks and gloves. I don't want to try the devil," said the 55-year-old nurse, who had only moderate symptoms.

Even if the risk is considered low, she does not want to bring back viral particles on her clothes or her hair.

Terry therefore has no less fear in his stomach than his uninfected colleagues.

The nurse still tries the devil a little: she regularly volunteers to enter the rooms of the most risky patients, those who are helped by a type of oxygen machine which releases into the room the expired air (and soiled ).

If co-workers "have children or an elderly person at home, I don't mind going there for them," said Terry.

© 2020 AFP