Queen’s Brian May tests positive for COVID-19, encourages vaccination

We’re getting a cautionary tale about protecting oneself against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic from none other than the guitarist from legendary rock band Queen, Brian May.

This all comes amid the global spread of the more transmissible — and more vaccine-resistant — Omicron variant of the disease, something that the now COVID-positive May has warned is “completely out of control in the UK,” though he added he isn’t sure which variation of the disease he has caught. May has been keeping fans in the loop about his struggle with having COVID with posts on his Instagram page, the latest of which you can view right here.

The musician explained that this all originated from the 74-year-old May and his wife, Anita Dobson, attending a Christmas gathering last weekend. Despite all attendees being “triple-jabbed” and all of them providing negative COVID-19 tests, they both ended up testing positive, apparently because of the gathering, where attendees did not wear masks. The gathering was reportedly last Saturday, but he and his wife didn’t show positive on the COVID test until Tuesday — at which time they heard of eight others from the gathering also testing positive — after having felt the effects of the disease in the days following the party.

Despite saying the illness feeling like the “worst flu that you could imagine” and calling his initial experience “two horrendous days,” he said he had been feeling “pretty good” for the last couple days about a week after the party, saying “this thing does go away.”

But May attributed his apparent road to recovery (he’s still testing positive as of press time) to having been vaccinated and with a booster shot. He took the opportunity of sharing his experience to implore other people to get vaccinated as well, noting that, in his view, he likely would’ve been worse off if he didn’t get the “jabs.”

“There are so many people in the hospital right now who weren’t jabbed, who are right on the line between life and death. And I can’t emphasize to you enough, this is not the response that my body would’ve made on its own, it’s making this response because I’ve had three Pfizer jabs. And I beg you and implore you to go and get jabbed if you weren’t already,” May said in a video Sunday.