The man accused of bringing Covid to Canberra has spoken of his deep hurt at the explosion of social media anger directed at him.
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"It's been the worst experience of my life," Cedric Nyamsi said.
"I thought I was a strong guy but I have just been crying because it hurt me so much."
Speaking for the first time after coming out of quarantine at the ANU, the butt of social media vitriol said he hadn't been to the Sydney hotspots or even to Sydney in the last three months.
He had no idea where he contracted the disease. He was going to offer his phone to the police for them to trace his movements. He said he had already given his phone to ACT Health.
Mr Nyamsi said he had emerged from quarantine a changed person.
"I've never been scared in my life but when I came out I thought there were people going to attack me. I was looking everywhere."
He said the allegation which hurt him most was that he was a drug runner who had been to Sydney to bring back a consignment.
"I don't sell drugs. I don't even know the taste of drugs. I don't smoke and I don't drink. I'm an athlete."
He said his friends had told him they thought the nastiness of the abuse was because of his skin colour.
"I think it's because I am black," he said. "If I wasn't black it wouldn't have happened."
One friend, Gus Nichols, agreed. "What has been portrayed is nothing like it is," he said.
"It's got to the point where you don't want to see social media because 99 per cent of it is false," Mr Nichols said.
His persecuted friend was a model for young people, including his own son.
Mr Nyamsi was disappointed to some extent in Canberra. "I thought that Canberra people were very nice - very friendly - but I realise there are some bad people," he said.
He didn't condemn all but said the abuse had really got to him.
Mr Nyamsi is a wrestler who came to Australia with the Cameroon team for the Commonwealth Games in 2018. He is the current ACT heavyweight freestyle wrestling champion and a former Australian champion.
Since then he has worked as a fitness trainer and as a bouncer. He said he was an apprentice builder and also worked in a hardware store.
He arrived from French-speaking Cameroon with no English and has learnt it in three years.
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He was working as a bouncer in Fiction nightclub when the current outbreak was first detected. He says he must have caught it from someone else.
Either way, the wrestler has just spent two weeks in quarantine at the ANU.
He says an initial meal was provided by the authorities but, since then, his sister has been cooking food at home and taking it in. She delivered it and it was then left outside his room at the university.
Mr Nyamsi was one of four people living together in Mitchell. They all contracted Covid. The other three were due to come out of their ANU quarantine on Friday.
It is not clear whether ACT Health believes that Mr Nyamsi was "Patient Zero" of the current outbreak.
"Investigations are ongoing for all current active cases, and to the source of infection for this outbreak," ACT Health said.
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