Day 5 of testing positive, I keep reading it can average around 10 days, so I'm REALLY hoping this is the halfway mark. I'd been trying to avoid Covid because I didn't want to get sick, or make anyone else sick.
What I did not consider was HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THIS IS. I don't like isolation, I don't like masking in the house (not gonna give my brother Covid) and I'm not enjoying trying to keep my body as calm as freaking possible in an attempt to ward off Long Covid.
You should absolutely avoid Covid cause getting sick sucks, getting other people sick sucks, nobody wants Long Covid, but also - seriously consider the annoyance and inconvenience factors, too, cause damn, I did not ever anticipate those and they are making me very stabby.
My symptoms resolved in under 48 hours, yay, and per the CDC, I can just go all face-naked Wednesday, because they tossed the 5/10 day isolation guidance out the window in March and it's all about symptoms and vibes apparently. (I will not be going face-naked anytime soon.)
Been seeing two camps on Covid lately. One is surprised that they know a bunch of people who have picked up Covid recently, and the other is astonished and really angry that people seem to not know better.
If you're not Terminally Online and actively seeking out Covid info - honestly, I can understand why you'd think things were OK and just go about your business like all was well. Because if it was still dangerous out there, the government would do something, right?
I can't remember the last time I heard about Covid in a meaningful way in any mainstream media. No structural mitigations since mid-2021. Health departments aren't really talking about it*, and the only data we seem to have anymore is wastewater surveillance, & you have to go looking for that. (And at least for my county's health department, that wastewater dashboard is not particularly helpful. It's out of date and only says if things are up/down/static.)
Federal, State & Local governments just acquiesced to industry and right wing psychos the moment the vaccines came out and just said "welp, good luck" and that was it.
The fact that the President caught Covid last month and it didn't even spark the tiniest of official public health discussions? The whole thing was a blip on the radar at best. Not a mitigation in sight at the Olympics? Of course folks will think things are OK.
Hell, anywhere I have a mask on these days, it is rare that I see anyone else with a mask on. When like 95% of folks aren't taking precautions, you can't slip up *at all* - and boy do I know - and if it was flipped and we were back in a majority of folks masking situation, we could all fuck up every now and then and it would be OK.
I am 99% sure I know exactly where I let my guard down and fucked up Covid-wise. I had masks on my trip, and I used them, and I got distracted and forgot once, and welp, here we are. Maybe if I'd looked around and everyone else was wearing a mask, I would have had that "what am I forgetting?" thought, IDK.
I'm not mad at whoever had it - I'm betting they didn't even know it and if their symptoms were anything like mine, it may not have even occurred to them as a possibility. I genuinely hope they're doing OK.
My symptoms were genuinely mild, and resolved in under 48 hours. Thursday morning, no symptoms, but still positive. If I'd not tested on Wednesday, I might have written it all off to just being overtired and just gone on with life.**
I understand the people in the "angry that folks don't know better camp" but that anger is misdirected. This has been a public health failure on multiple fronts from the start. You cannot make managing something as big as Covid an individual responsibility with zero support, which is exactly what has happened.
There is no good data being pushed out, tests aren't covered by insurance anymore, masks aren't covered by insurance, the CDC says a "Core Prevention Strategy" is vaccination, but current vaccines don't prevent transmission (ASK ME HOW I KNOW,) strains are changing faster than we get vaccines out, a year seems to be a big stretch on vaccine efficacy, and masking is just a "Additional Strategy"…
We fucking *know* masking is the best, easiest, and cheapest damn method for preventing transmission - every agency even tangentially involved with public health should still be screaming it from the rooftops 24/7. But it's crickets, because, fuck if I know anymore.
Fucking terrified of what H5N1 avian flu is gonna do given the sorry state of public health in this country.
* I checked my county health departments Twitter account. 6 mentions of Covid in 2024. That account has 14,000 followers. There are over 880,000 people over the age of 18 in the county. They only have 22,000 followers on FB, and about as many Covid mentions.
** Yes, I still took sick leave for two days, because I know a critical factor in recovery is rest, and I am not resting when I'm working, even if it is a laptop job. HR can fight me on this if they want.
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