by Nick Taylor
I caught COVID, or I should say, COVID caught me. I thought my two vaccinations and four boosters would protect me and I got careless. The pandemic’s been going on for almost three years now, and I had COVID fatigue. So does everybody else. Signs of it are everywhere here in New York, on our crowded sidewalks and in our crowded stores and in our restaurants and theaters and sports arenas. Hardly anybody’s wearing masks now. People are going about their normal lives and having normal conversations. The COVID virus, whatever variant it’s cooking up to infect us with this winter, is having a fine laugh.
My story is a cautionary tale. I thought I had dodged the virus. So I’m here to urge you: Don’t get careless!
Barbara and I got all our vaccines and wore masks. Everybody else did early on, at least here in New York. Out for a walk, going into a store, riding the subway, even riding bikes, nobody went maskless. If you went to the theater, you had to show your vaccination ID to get in the door and mask up to watch the show. Then a few people started going without, then half, and eventually mask wearers were a small minority even in the subway. Finally the authorities dropped mask-wearing mandates.
Even when others stopped wearing masks, Barbara and I tried to take ours with us everywhere we went. I wore mine on my wrists or stuffed one into a pocket, but I felt better having a mask even if I didn’t use it. She was the more faithful mask wearer. But sometimes she forgot too. To ward off forgetfulness, she scribbled “Remember Mask!” on a piece of paper and taped it near our outside doors. Even then, I’d sometimes get halfway down the block before remembering that I’d forgot, and have to turn around.
I don’t know how or exactly when I was exposed. Maybe at the gym. Maybe the farmers market, outdoors but still close-packed, or buying wine at our small local store, or going maskless when I got a haircut. Maybe I caught it from one of the neighbors in our building who caught it despite having been fully vaccinated.
Suddenly, I felt tired. My body didn’t want to do much although I hadn’t done much all day. That Monday night, I tossed and turned and coughed and hacked and the next morning I knew. When I tested, the second pink line popped up right away.
My doctor said it would likely last 10 days and that I should sleep apart from Barbara in a separate room. We made up the couch in my office and there I was a pariah in my own home.
Barbara was a vigilant caregiver and kept herself safe, too. She found instructions on the CDC website and followed them to the letter. First thing, she put a mask and blue nitrile gloves in front of me and said, “Put those on!” Then she plopped down a dispenser of hand sanitizer. From then on her mantra was, “Don’t touch anything.” When I did touch something like the TV remotes and door knobs, she sprayed them with Lysol or used a Lysol wipe before she picked them up. She pointed out that she had taken her guidance from the CDC. And she apologized repeatedly and said, “I’m really sorry. But this COVID brings out my worst phobias.”
Of course, we had another crisis going on to complicate things. Our dishwasher sprang a leak, and the repair man couldn’t come for two weeks. So we couldn’t super sanitize dishes. Barbara washed by hand and bought disposable, compostable plates made out of palm leaves for me to use. It was an uncomfortable, stressful time for both of us. I couldn’t make our morning guacamole, or mix my own Manhattans. Barbara had to work that much harder because COVID stole my household duties.
My case wasn’t bad. It lasted ten days from a cough and fever and a positive self-test on a Tuesday morning to diminishing and then no symptoms and a negative test the following Wednesday. Even mild COVID is at least a week-long affair and you don’t know what the consequences are.
One piece of good news for New Yorkers. My negative result came from an antigen test at one of many sidewalk testing sites. It’s the same kind of test you do at home, that looks at the antibodies that trigger an immune response. The sidewalk sites also do the slower-to-analyze PCR test, and that test came back positive. But that test finds COVID in your DNA and will show you positive even when you’re no longer infectious. Nevertheless, that result was reported to the New York City Health Department and I got a follow-up call from a nurse to see if I needed any advice or additional care. It’s good to know the city’s on the case.
That’s especially true now, with winter bearing down. Signs of the COVID fatigue I felt are everywhere. Masking is an afterthought. Nobody asks to see vaccination IDs anymore, and hardly anyone wears masks. But as we retreat indoors, we need to prioritize our safety over our convenience.
Only about half of Americans eligible for booster shots have gotten them. And only 10 percent have gotten the newest bivalent booster. With waning immunity and new subvariants looking for chinks in our armor, we’re likely to see an uptick in cases and hospitalizations this winter.
As Dr. Fauci put it, “You may be done with COVID, but COVID is not done with the United States, nor is it done with the world.” So mask up. And get your shots.
