Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

No one is scared of it anymore.

The vast, vast majority of people have already had it. And the vast, vast majority of those people have gotten sick for a day or two, and then resumed living their lives.

For many people, there’s not a public health message that can penetrate that type of personal experience.

 

1. My wife and I are in our mid-60's. We are multi-vaxxed, but have never had Covid.

2. We have various risk factors, and she has an IgA deficiency that makes her particularly vulnerable to viruses that attack through the mucous membranes.

3. We have a couple of family members who died of Covid, and another with substantial long Covid issues.


We don't live our lives in fear, and we are as guilty as anyone else about not wearing a mask sometimes when we probably should, but we have a healthy respect for the risk. Don't want to find out the hard way how hard it will hit us. This goes a long way in forming my perspective.

 

I totally get it. Most of us have lost someone close to us by this point.

I just wonder how your perspective would change if you got it and barely felt it.

I have risk factors too, but I was only mildly “sick” for a few hours total when I got it. And, by “sick,” I mean “tired” more than anything else.

 

Christmas bump. People generally aren't shocked by a high heating bill in January, either. If there are still 550 deaths the week of Valentine's Day, something is concerning.

 

Not if Twitter is even a fraction of an approximation of real life.

 

it kicked my ass in for a month and I am more afraid of it now, but generally I think that is true: no one fears it.
And while it was unpleasant, I have had worse.
The main fear is that nobody knows what this does to carbon-based beings long term.

 

Spoiler: It’s not.

 

To be fair, this far into it I think we have to temper our own worries and fears and experiences of the virus against Big Picture collateral damage, like closing the schools or shutting down the economy.

None of which came without a high cost, regardless of how inconsistently or badly or briefly it was done.

Having said that, I think we all understand that no meaningful interventions at scale - every school and transit system and movie theater and bowling alley in America getting a new HEPA ventilation system, for example - are ever going to be made.

So the responsibility falls again on the individual to make good choices.

Boost. Mask.

Good luck.

 

People just don't care anymore. I was a close contact recently (did not end up getting it), and I followed CDC guidelines for my 5 days (wore masks in the store, avoided crowds, canceled plans with friends, didn't go to yoga classes), and everyone's reaction was something like: "Wow, you're being really good, I didn't do that."

These were people who were often more conservative about this stuff than I was during the heart of the pandemic.

 

I had a guy whose pizza place I stop at say 'Hey, feel better!' because I was wearing a mask.

So now I suppose the default assumption is that one is infected if wearing a mask. That's fine by me.

That's what I'd been telling people anyway if they asked me about the mask.

 

My wife's risk is very real. For instance, she had the measles multiple times as a child. 15-20 years ago she was a subject in a research study regarding immune deficiencies, and as part of that she was given the measles vax several times over a year, and her measles titers barely registered. She is legit at serious risk. I'm very healthy overall, and unless I draw the short straw would likely ride it out much as you guys have, but I'm terrified that she'll get it and just crater. Even if it does not kill her, she already has many long term health issues and long Covid would only make our lives that much more difficult.

So yes, to that degree I do indeed live in fear. OTOH, we're old retired people, and she has major mobility issues that limit her social contacts and time out of the house for other than necessary trips. It's hard.

 

Hang in there.