Tens of thousands of people across Virginia and millions across the nation have been infected with COVID-19 — and the data show the vast majority recovered without feeling much effect.

So how bad can this virus be?

Just ask the Rev. Morris R. Gant Jr., 62, who is living proof of the agony that those hit hardest can endure — if they live.

The Richmond area resident and former pastor of Guildfield Baptist Church in Powhatan County is still recovering from the viral infection that left him hospitalized for 64 days. He spent 24 days of those days unconscious, breathing with the help of a ventilator.

Rev. Gant was among the first people infected as the virus entered Virginia in mid-March. His survival is being called a miracle by his loved ones, as most people who went on ventilators in the first months did not make it.

While on the ventilator in a drug-induced coma, he suffered a host of additional medical problems that were potentially fatal — two strokes; blood poisoning; and liver, heart and kidney damage that required around-the-clock dialysis. He also contracted double pneumonia and had blood clots.

Even after Rev. Gant came off the ventilator, it took him an additional three weeks before he could use a walker and go to the bathroom by himself.

“I couldn’t wipe my booty or stand up next to my bed,” he said, in recalling how even his hands wouldn’t work.

Rev. Gant credits his faith with seeing him through, along with the power of his extended family’s prayers and the medical care he received at Bon Secours-St. Francis Medical Center in Chesterfield County during a time when physicians and nurses were just learning about COVID-19 and best treatment practices.

“It’s been an ordeal,” he said. Even now, he must take steroids to improve his breathing as his lungs were scarred.

His thinking and memory also have been affected by what is called “long haul syndrome,” that can include lingering brain fog, fatigue, shortness of breath and joint and chest pain. When he gets tired — and he still tires more easily — he said he often cannot remember the name of everyday items, such as a comb or kitchen utensils.

It is still a mystery why some people are infected, some shrug off the disease and some get hammered. Rev. Gant’s wife, Lynda C. Gant, for example, never contracted the disease even though she stayed close to her husband while he was infectious.

However, Rev. Gant’s cautionary tale shows the worst can happen and explains the emphasis being put on wearing masks and keeping at least 6 feet away from others.

Avoiding the disease is one of the best ways to prevent becoming one of the rapidly rising statistics of people who are hit or hospitalized with COVID-19 — like Rev. Gant — or who succumb to it.

A big man who migrated to Virginia from his native Philadelphia, Rev. Gant is a former Richmond Police officer who later worked for 16 years for United Parcel Service before turning to the ministry

At 43, he began his career change when he entered the seminary at Virginia Union University, where he earned a master’s degree in theology. He then spent a year at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth to earn certification in clinical pastoral education. Since then, Rev. Ganthas served primarily as a hospice chaplain, specializing in comforting the dying and helping their families during the process. In 2013, he added to his workload by becoming pastor of Guildfield Baptist and its 50-member congregation.

His COVID-19 story began in March within a week or two after the virus was first detected and Gov. Ralph S. Northam declared a state emergency on March 12.

Rev. Gant is not sure when or where he came into contact with the virus, although he believes it might have happened when he visited a nursing home resident in Chesterfield County.

He said the nursing home was checking temperatures, but it was still very early in the pandemic and masks were not such a big deal. He said he started getting sick within a few days. When his temperature rose to 102.3, he went to a nearby hospital.

He said he returned home after a doctor told him there was little to be done.

“You can be miserable here or miserable at home,” he said he was told.

Because testing was extremely limited, he was not yet diagnosed with the coronavirus. At home, Rev. Gant said his condition continued to deteriorate. “I couldn’t hold my head up,” he said. “I constantly leaned over with my head down. I had no energy, and I had a hard time breathing.”

His wife, using a small medical device to measure his blood oxygen level, persuaded him to go to a hospital when his oxygen level fell to 80 percent, or 13 percentage points below normal.

Mrs. Gant drove him to the hospital. He said a doctor saw him in the emergency room.

“He asked if he could pray for me,” Rev. Gant said. “Those are the last words I heard before I woke up 24 days later.”

Rev. Gant said he finally was able to walk to the bathroom on his own after about 40 days in the hospital. He said he looked in the mirror and saw a bearded figure with unkempt hair. “I almost didn’t recognize myself, ” he said.

Rev. Gant would remain isolated from his family through his six-week stay at St. Francis, followed by another three weeks at the Sheltering Arms Institute Physical Rehabilitation Hospital. He was able to touch his wife’s hand and face for the first time when he was discharged.

While he was unconscious, his wife would make a video call to him daily, with the hospital staff holding an electronic tablet close so he could hear her voice. She also alerted the extended family that organized prayer circles.

Mrs. Gant never wavered in her certainty he would recover.

She said the palliative care doctor daily would “talk about the high probability that my husband would die and that I needed to make a decision on whether I wanted them to resuscitate if something went wrong.

“I politely told him that I believe in the power of God, the power of prayer and that God was going to heal him and bring him home,” she said.

Mrs. Gant said she also told the physician “that we are a praying family, that I have a village of saints that are praying for him. We bombarded God with specific prayers. Twenty-four days after he was admitted to the hospital, he woke up,” she said.

“He is a miracle. We experienced a miracle.”