They won the fight against coronavirus. Here's what life looks like on the other side

By Nicole Chavez, CNN

Updated 12:07 PM ET, Thu April 23, 2020

Coronavirus survivor describes his battle with delirium 04:05

(CNN)Cookie Villarreal was finally home. She had beaten the novel coronavirus but she couldn't get dressed by herself or even raise her arms to brush her hair.

"By the grace of God I was able to get off (the ventilator)," said the 69-year-old woman from Lorain, Ohio.

Villarreal is among thousands of people who have survived after contracting Covid-19. As of Thursday, estimates indicate that more than 710,000 people have recovered from Covid-19 worldwide, according to data collected by John Hopkins University. The actual figure is likely to be higher because the data cover only confirmed cases.

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The survivors are old and young, celebrities, health care workers, faith leaders and parents. They battled the virus while hospitalized or isolated at home and were able to make it through.

Here's what people on the other side of the pandemic are doing:

They are learning how to breathe and walk again

Jesse Vanderhoof could barely move with a walker around his home in Blaine County, Idaho, and going to his upstairs bedroom was out of the question.

For the 40-year-old nurse, the skiing and hiking trips with his wife feel like distant memories. Ten days after leaving the hospital, walking only a couple of blocks leaves him extremely exhausted.

When the ventilator comes off, the delirium comes out for many coronavirus survivors

"You want to talk about humbling and challenging for a man, that's as tough as it gets right there," Vanderhoof said of his week on a ventilator after he contracted coronavirus while working on Covid-19 testing tents.

Vanderhoof's wife, Emily, said she's slept on the floor while he slept on the couch to help him walk to the bathroom at night and has seen him battle the "ICU delirium," an acute brain condition particularly common in patients who are sedated and on a ventilator for extended periods of time.

Jesse Vanderhoof stands outside his home in Blaine County, Idaho.

"He didn't understand why the world was at war with (Covid-19), why health care workers were heroes, why he was involved," Emily, 34, said. "We had the same conversation for four days straight."

Some survivors, such as David Lat, say one of their biggest challenges has been learning "how to breathe again" after spending 17 days in a New York hospital and six days on a ventilator.

"It's not happily ever after, but it's better than the alternative," the lawyer and founder of the blog "Above the Law" told CNN.