Former Atlanta council member shares message with the public after COVID-19 recovery

Kwanza Hall thought his drawer full of vitamins and immune-boosting supplements, combined with a rigorous disinfecting routine, social distancing and face-covering usage would ward off COVID-19, but he still contracted the virus sometime around the Fourth of July.

"When I got sick on that Monday morning after the Fourth, it just hit me like a Mack truck in a few hours. I felt fever, chills, body aches and that was a 102- to 103-degree fever for three days. I stayed under the covers in a hoodie with the thermostat on 87 degrees because anything below that was too cold," Hall told FOX 5's Portia Bruner. "I lost my sense of taste, my sense of smell. I had serious G.I. issues," he added.

On the fourth day of his illness, the former Atlanta City Council said he felt well enough to leave home and get tested.

"It's not like there was anything you could do, but just sweat it out. I was too healthy to go to the hospital and didn't want to take a hospital bed from someone else who really needed it. When I got tested, they said I had the antibodies, but that I was no longer contagious, but that I should stay home for a while anyway," Hall said, who posted about his bout with COVID-19 over the weekend.

Following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Hall self-quarantined for two weeks in the middle of July as a precaution. He said was healthy when he went to the Sloppy Floyd Building in downtown Atlanta on July 31 to qualify in the special election to fill the late John Lewis's congressional seat.

“I would never have gone down there if I was sick. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to put anyone at risk like that,” said Hall who served on the Atlanta City Council from 2005 until 2017 when he ran for mayor.

He now hopes other healthy Georgians who haven't contracted the potentially deadly virus will recognize no one is immune to the illness.

"We're not taking this seriously. People are going out without masks, not keeping a safe distance from other people. I have no idea how or where I caught it, but I know it was after I got a little laxed and started going out more often for little things like groceries or getting gas. These social distancing guidelines need to be the new protocols for everyone moving forward. People really still need to stay home," said Hall.