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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Today is the one year anniversary of my first Pfizer vaccine… and I am finishing day 5 of my covid quarantine. I have lived the last 2 years in fear of getting sick or spreading this virus. I am in healthcare and I am mentally exhausted. Over the past 2 weeks I have had multiple exposures at my work and in my personal life. Last Monday my boyfriend got sick. He tried to isolate but we live in a 700 sqft apartment. By Wednesday night I had an intense headache that I knew was probably Omicron. I called out of work Thursday and scheduled a PCR covid test. It has since been 5 days and still no test results. I am supposed to return to work tomorrow so I spent hours today searching for a home rapid test. Results: positive. In the time it took me to find a test I have fully completed my quarantine period (per updated CDC guidance). My symptoms were as follows: Day 0- intensive headache, sore throat, cough, SOV, SpO2 93-98%, max fever 99.8 F Day 1- Sore throat, cough, short of breath, body aches, chills, fatigue, max fever 101.8 F, SpO2 89-95% Day 2- Sore throat, cough, stuffy nose, sneezing, max fever 99.5 Day 3- Sneezing,stuffy/runny nose, slight cough Day 4- sneezing, congestion, cough Day 5- residual cough I am grateful to be vaccinated x3. I am a young, active, healthy person with no comorbidities and this was a severe illness for me. Covid guidelines aside, I would have called out sick from work. Things I am worried about: I am returning to work too early because I still have slight symptoms, lack of sick leave, long covid, reinfection with future variants.
January 12, 2022
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What do you think history books will say about this time? In your view, what's most important for them to include?
Sadly, I've thought about this quite a bit and I am confident that this time period will be reduced to a paragraph in a text book. I think back to my high school US history teacher and how much history was "skimmed over" or distilled down to mere paragraphs. For example, I remember we spent about 2 days discussing the Civil War. At the time, I had little interest - it wasn't until my Dad took me to Lincoln's Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois that I became obsessed with the history - what caused it, who suffered, who lived, who died and how it foreshadowed coming wars. I learned none of that from my school. It was all self-learning - from many hours standing in Civil War battlefields, Presidential Libraries and museums. So, I feel quite confident that if a four year war was reduced to two days, then an 18 month endeavor like the coronavirus will be a mere paragraph. I can see it now - "there was a new virus that most likely came from China that caused mass panic for several months. It resulted in a minor recession and the first practice of a basic universal income. And there was a bit of unrest with people not wanting to wear masks. Oh and a new president was elected. THE END." Perhaps I'm wrong, I'd like to be. But I don't think it will be that much different. Guess we will need to wait about twenty years to find out.
September 1, 2021