Jeff Waters (Annihilator) COVID-19 took six months to recover: “I got it really bad”

Annihilator founder Jeff Waters has recently shared his experience battling COVID-19, unfortunately mentioning that it left him fearing for his own life

The 55-year-old guitarist/vocalist, who moved to the UK from his Canadian hometown in 2018, discussed his recent health issues in a new interview with Bringin’ It Backwards.

When we went to this COVID disaster, I took stock of a few things because I got COVID, my wife got it and the kids got it. And I got it really bad because I am older, I was an ex-smoker. I don’t drink alcohol for three decades but I’m still not an exerciser. I didn’t drink a lot of water. I intook a lot of fast foods.

Basically what it was was the pandemic hit [and] I got COVID bad. I had the thing where the elephant was sitting on your chest for two weeks and I was wheezing like a crackling fire. That’s how I explained it — whether it was in or out breath, it was a crackling fire. And you were told not to pop asthma medication ’cause that could make it worse.”

My oxygen level got tested and they said, ‘You should probably be in the hospital. If your oxygen level gets any lower, you need to be in the hospital.’ And my wife watched me all day and night in another room and made sure I was okay. I isolated ’cause I was scared — we were all terrified over here [in the U.K.], like everywhere. And I recovered partially in about two weeks. I woke up and the elephant was gone. So it was, like, ‘Okay, he’s not sitting on my chest anymore.’ But it took six to seven months. And now I understood what I thought was such a goofy term — ‘long COVID.’ I was thinking, ‘Oh, it’s another political bunch of bullshit.’ And then I understood it that that was real — COVID was real, but that was real. Because it took over six months. And then I woke up one morning and went, ‘Oh, the other half of my lungs are back.’ So I went through six and a half months of, ‘Oh, shit. Did I just damage my lungs? And is my career, and maybe even life, done here.’ And [then] I was back.”Jeff Waters shares his battle with COVID-19

Founded in 1984, Annihilator quickly dominated the world with their maniacal thrash debut “Alice In Hell”. With sophomore release “Never, Neverland”, they were able to solidify their career and tour with the worlds biggest acts, leading them to becoming the best selling metal band in Canadian history.