Covid Don't Care

Pardon the poor grammar. Yes, my Mom taught me better.

It finally happened: The Curmudgeon caught the 'rona. My number finally came up. I'm officially one of the cool kids. I was starting to feel left out.

(Forgive me for the "cool kids" comment; I'm sensitive to the fact that many have lost loved ones to covid. And the flu. And heart disease. And cancer. And suicide. And auto accidents. And a lot of other things that kill people. It was just starting to feel like I was the only person I knew that hadn't had covid yet, and now I have.)

I made it through the initial wave in the spring of 2020, when we shut everything down to flatten the curve. Then the bigger wave that summer, after we re-opened. Then the much larger wave in the winter of 2020-2021, when New York and California shut down again. I made it through the Delta wave in the fall of 2021, and the massive Omicron spike last winter. Then, the second Omicron variant got me.

And I made it through all that as someone who didn't really take any precautions. I traveled quite a bit in the first three months of 2020, visiting San Francisco, Austin, and Florida on business, going on a cruise, and vacationing in Hawaii. (I actually may have had covid in March of 2020, but it was diagnosed as influenza "and this nasty virus we've been seeing going around.")

Once covid hit and restrictions started being put in place, I largely ignored them. When the Governor of Kansas ordered everyone to stay home for two weeks beginning in late March, 2020, except to go to the doctor or the grocery store, I continued to take my dogs to the park every day. If I heard of a "non-essential" business that re-opened early in defiance of the shutdown order, I patronized them to show support, because I thought the shutdown was BS. When things re-opened, we began to eat out again, two or three times a week. When mask mandates were put in place, I wore one as little as I could get away with. When they expired in some jurisdictions in the Kansas City metro, but not in others, I shopped and dined out in those jurisdictions that had dropped them, and avoided the others.

I continued to travel, for both business (although a lot less than I used to) and pleasure, including a trip to Mexico. I took 40 flights during the TSA mask mandate, and I rarely wore a mask on board the plane or in the airport. I never got hassled about it. I didn't put my mask on at the airport until I got ready to clear security, and once I did, it came off while I sat and waited for my flight, only going on again during boarding. As soon as the flight attendants sat down for taxi and takeoff, my mask came down, and it stayed down throughout the flight as I sipped water and nibbled almonds, or at least pretended to. It only came back up during deplaning. Once out of the jetway, it came down again as I either changed planes or exited the airport. I didn't wear one while checking into hotels - I usually had my room already assigned, and a digital key on my phone, so I just went straight to my room, bypassing the front desk.

During the first big wave in the summer of 2020, we drove to New Mexico for vacation. There was a mandatory 14-day quarantine for out-of-state visitors, which I ignored. At one state park, we got stopped by police, who noticed our Kansas tags. They simply asked us to leave the park - they had no more interest in enforcing a stupid rule than we had in complying with it. No one else asked about our out-of-state tags, and our VRBO landlords said nothing about the quarantine requirement.

Once the vaccines became available, I was in no rush to get vaccinated. I knew that the vaccines would not prevent covid, long before Delta exposed that truth through widespread breakthrough infections. How did I know this? Simple: I understand what 95% efficacy means. I also knew that, given all the risk factors, my odds of getting covid were probably about 8% without the vaccine, and about 5% with it (that was before Delta reduced the efficacy rate). And my odds of being hospitalized or dying if I got it were also very low, given my risk factors. So I wasn't afraid of the vaccine; I merely thought, why bother?

In other words, for two years, I thumbed my nose at covid. Then covid said, "Tag - you're it!"

Okay, time for a sidebar.

Now here's another big reveal: The Curmudgeon finally did get vaccinated, in July-August of 2021. Why?

Certainly not because of health considerations. My "why bother?" view toward the vaccines has never changed. I still don't think I needed to get it to prevent covid (that's rather obvious now). I may or may not have needed to get it to avoid serious illness; we'll never really know, though I suspect that at least for some, the vaccines are effective in preventing serious illness. I don't think this recent bout would have landed me in the hospital had I not been vaccinated. Of course, I can't know that.

When the Delta variant first reared its ugly head in the summer of 2021, the hysteria accompanying it rapidly grew beyond the pale. I anticipated new restrictions being put in place, including vaccination requirements for things like domestic air travel, something that was hinted at by one airline CEO. I had a business trip coming up in late August. I didn't want to get stranded out of state, only to have a mandate put in place while I was gone, and not be able to fly home until I got the two shots, a month apart, then waited the two additional weeks to meet the "fully vaccinated" definition. (Happily, that never happened.)

I also knew that, even if those restrictions didn't materialize, there were already vaccine requirements for things I'd eventually want to do, like cruising and international travel (we already had a Transatlantic cruise departing from Barcelona booked in October 2022, and we've been itching to get back to cruising, something we've done more than 20 times). So I knew that, eventually, I'd get vaccinated.

Meticulous researcher that I am, the more I studied the vaccines, the less concerned I became about them. Interestingly, much of that research came as people tried to convince me - I'm not sure why - that the vaccines were dangerous. I won't go into great detail regarding that research here, but suffice it to say that it was laughably easy to debunk everything I was sent or that I read regarding the dangers of the vaccines. If anyone who has read this blog knows anything about me by now, they know I'm a math guy, and simple math overwhelmingly refutes the notion that the vaccines are as dangerous as their harshest critics would have us believe. Ironically, that's the same math that I used to combat so many of the myths about covid, in posts that those same people read and wholeheartedly agreed with.

I'll address the whole question of the vaccines in another post for another day, but it comes down to this: they don't prevent covid, not at all. In fact, unless you're in a real at-risk category, and maybe even if you are, they don't really change your odds of getting it. They may reduce your chances of serious illness or death, especially if you are in an at-risk category, though read on for some thoughts about that. But certainly, if I were in an at-risk category, I'd roll the dice on the assumption that maybe they would reduce my chances. You take all the help you can get, right?

On the flip side, for the vast, vast, vast majority of people, they aren't dangerous. They have their risks for young people, especially young males, though we now know that contracting covid poses those same risks to those same demographics, if not a little bit worse. So maybe, just maybe, the balance of the equities bears taking the risk. We also know that there are ways of mitigating that risk, such as adjusting the timing of doses. In any event, we further know that, either way, it's largely unnecessary, because the long-term risk that covid presents to the young and healthy is minimal.

So I really wish that all the vaccine proselytizing would stop, on both sides. If you believe that getting vaccinated is the right decision for you, do it. Say so, even, but stop there. Stop trying to convince everyone else that it's the right decision for them, that it prevents covid (because it doesn't), that it prevents serious illness or death (because it may or may not), and just let it be the right decision for you. It doesn't have to be the right decision for everybody. Just like getting the flu vaccine, or taking sugar in your coffee, or eating sushi, or getting circumcised. Fauci has enough acolytes.

Likewise, if you believe that it's not the right decision for you, don't do it. In fact, if you think the vaccine is dangerous, that it's a killer, that it causes HIV, that it'll make you grow a third arm out of your forehead, fine - believe that. But just say that it's not for you. Drop the crusade of trying to convince the world that it's going to kill them. Because you've already lost that battle: you're about 5 billion people behind, and they're still alive and kicking. (If you're really convinced you're right, by the way, you need to be stockpiling food and ammo like a fiend, because if 5 billion people worldwide - 63% of the population - suddenly die, Stephen King's "The Stand" is going to look like a Nicholas Sparks novel.)

Enough with the vaccine sidebar. Let's get back to The Curmudgeon's bout with the 'rona.

My lovely wife and I were in Siesta Key, Florida. By the way, if you're going to wind up having to isolate somewhere with covid, I highly recommend Siesta Key. It's a beautiful place, and you can walk on the beach and soak up all the vitamin D your little immune system desires.

We flew in on a Saturday - our first flight since a judge struck down the CDC's extension of the TSA mask mandate - so we flew maskless. But, as I said earlier, that was hardly a change for me, as I spent little time with a mask on when I flew while the mandate was in place. We went to our condo, went out to dinner, went to the beach Sunday, got groceries, went to lunch and dinner. Then, I spent most of Monday in the pool, as I had gone for a week-long swimming class.

Late Monday, I started to get a mild sore throat. Now, it's been a very long time since I spent hours in a swimming pool, getting water in my sinuses and ears. I'm also prone to sinus infections - I get one or two a year. And I'm so familiar with the symptoms that I can self-diagnose: for me, they start with a sore throat, usually in the evening, becoming worse overnight, to the point that my sleep is interrupted. (Check.) The sore throat lasts through the next day, in this case, Tuesday. (Check.) Then, it goes away, and I start to get sinus congestion and a runny nose the next day, with maybe some mild body aches, and chills at bedtime. (Check.) (This time, I also seemed to be a little more achy, and to get tired earlier in the evening, but again, I was swimming all day, which I wasn't used to.) Finally, the congestion moves into my chest, and I develop a cough. (Check.)

So familiar is this symptom progression to me that I usually just go to the doctor and say, "I have a sinus infection, and I need a Z-pack" (Zithromax, an antibiotic that generally knocks the infection out in a few days). My doc is really good about complying. When I'm traveling, I sometimes have to plead my case, and I occasionally get a holistic medicine-type who gives me the Madame Curie lecture about the dangers of antibiotics, and I have to suffer until I get home to my doc, who's been practicing medicine longer than those yahoos have been on the earth. Once, on a cruise, I went to the ship's doctor and gave him the I-have-a-sinus-infection-and-I-need-a-Z-pack pitch. The doctor, a Colombian, gave me a wry smile and asked if he could give me a second opinion. "Sure," I agreed. He checked me out, then said, "You have a sinus infection. I'm going to give you a Z-pack."

So, I thought I got a sinus infection. Why? Because I get them all the time. It's spring, and I figured maybe it was related to seasonal allergies. I was going from our climate in Kansas, where the weather had been crazy - 70 degrees one day, snowing three days later, 70 degrees again three days after that, lather, rinse, repeat - to the Florida Gulf Coast, where it was a predictable 85 degrees every day. And, I had that pool water up my nose and stuck in my ears every day.

Only this time, my wife got it too. And she got it hard. She had a fever most of the week. (I may have, except I was getting the headaches that usually accompany my sinus infections, so I was taking Advil, which would have reduced my fever, whereas she was letting her fever burn out.) And her aches were worse than mine, but again, she wasn't taking Advil. And I was exercising every day, some days forcing myself to go to the pool, because I'd paid for the class.

On Friday, after the class ended, we were getting our things together to fly home Saturday. My wife thought we should test ourselves for covid; even though it wasn't required to fly, we were supposed to attest that we hadn't tested positive for covid before boarding our flight. (A good friend asked, "Why would you test?" I explained our reasons, but in hindsight, as I think about it, the better answer to that question is, "Why on earth wouldn't you?")

We purchased home covid tests from Walgreen's, took them, and ... we both tested positive. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't lost my sense of smell or taste, I didn't have any of the other covid symptoms I'd heard about - in fact, my symptoms were firmly indicative of an all-too-familiar sinus infection, and I was convinced that was all this was. I suspected the tests, and insisted that we do another, since we had extras. We did, and got the same result.

So we decided to isolate for another week in Florida. Our condo was booked for the next week, and our rental car company was sold out for the following week. So we had to find another condo, and rent a car from another company, and change our flights, and ask my wife's Mom to watch our dogs for another week, and otherwise do some schedule-juggling.

We came home the following weekend. It's now been nearly three weeks since the onset of symptoms, and more than two weeks since that positive test, and a week since we got home. My wife is fully recovered, but I'm still battling a cough, though it seems to be getting better. I did go to an urgent care clinic in Florida, and they put me on a steroid and an antibiotic, which seemed to do pretty much nothing for me. (Note that the clinic diagnosed me with "covid and sinusitis," which is a sinus infection. And sometimes my sinus infections result in a cough that lingers for a few weeks, so this isn't necessarily unusual. By the way, when I asked the doctor at the clinic if they needed to test me again, she said they actually recommend against it. Why, I wonder? I found that curious.)

So, now that I'm a card-carrying member of the covid club, herewith are my observations.

1. It is just a matter of time. We are probably all at risk of getting covid at some point. Vaxxed or unvaxxed, boosted or unboosted, masked or unmasked. Covid don't care. It's here to stay, and we're going to have to live with it. It is entirely indiscriminate. In a post a year or so ago, I said that the virus itself is the superspreader, not some event. That's absolutely true. I also used an analogy based on some words of wisdom from my wife. We were watching news coverage of flooding on the Mississippi River. Residents of a small town in Missouri were stacking sandbags on the riverbank trying to protect the town. My wife observed, "You know, that river's been going pretty much wherever it wants to go for more than a million years, and it's going to keep going wherever it wants to go for the next million years, and all the sandbags in the world won't change that."

So it is with covid. Covid don't care. It's gonna go where it wants to go, and all the masks and vaccines and social distancing and Plexiglas and shutdowns and arrows on supermarket aisle floors in the world aren't going to change that.

2. To wit: based on what we know about the incubation period of the second Omicron variant, there's a good chance that I was exposed at a physical therapy appointment on the Friday before we left for Florida. And the physical therapy facility requires that masks be worn at all times, by all patients, therapists, and staff.

Now, the mask brigade will pooh-pooh that idea, and insist that my exposure came while traveling maskless. "See?" they'll cry with sanctimonious glee. "That's what you get for that judge striking down the mask mandate!" Well, not so fast. First, that would mean an incubation period of two days or less, which is inconsistent with what the "experts" say about Omicron II (the same "experts" that say we should still be wearing masks on planes). Second, as previously noted, I've never really worn a mask while traveling by plane. I flew during the OG phase, the first summer wave, the first winter spike, the Delta wave, and the first Omicron spike, all with my mask mostly down around my chin. True, for those last two waves I was vaccinated, but we saw how well that worked for me, right?

Also, there's the experience of some of my friends. I have a friend who isn't vaccinated, and has never worn a mask, as far as I know, and she had both the OG and Delta variants. I also have friends who were absolutely diligent about mask-wearing. And yet, around the end of 2020, they came down with covid, while my bare face went unscathed. And I'm guessing that, if they got on a plane today, they'd be wearing masks. I know other religious mask-wearers who've gotten covid twice.

3. The caveat here is that, besides my belief that masks are ineffective, I don't believe the experts know squat about incubation periods, among other things. Maybe I did get it on the plane to Florida. (I rather doubt it, knowing what I know about air circulation on airplanes, exposure times, etc.) Maybe I got it in the airport. Maybe I got it at a restaurant. Or maybe I did get it at PT, with my mask on. Who knows? And who cares? Covid don't care. Neither do I. I got it. And no amount of contact tracing in the world could ever prove where I got it. And I personally don't think we know what the incubation period is for any of the variants. Because we can't prove when someone was actually exposed.

4. The vaccine did not prevent me from getting it. My friend who is unvaccinated got it. Her natural immunity from getting it once didn't do much for her, because she got it again. I personally know people who are religious mask-wearers, are vaccinated and boosted, and have had it twice. Covid don't care.

Will I get boosted? Not for health reasons, because it won't do any more good than the original round did. Like I said, I know people who are vaccinated and boosted, and have gotten it once or even twice. Neither the vaccine, nor the booster, nor their natural immunity did squat for them. Covid don't care. It's no different than the flu or a cold.

I know a guy who I used to ride bikes with. He still rides, so he's in pretty good shape, though I understand he has some heart condition. But he's younger than I am. He apparently got covid recently also. He's a firm believer in masks. He's vaccinated and boosted, but "hasn't gotten around to getting the second booster yet." Yet he encourages people to do so. Why? His triple-vax and mask-wearing didn't keep him from getting covid. Does he think one more dose is going to do the trick? Covid don't care.

Moreover, in spite of the fact that he's younger and fitter than I am, and triple-vaxxed, he apparently had it worse than I did. He described his symptoms as similar to mine, only with "severe body aches - the worst symptom so far." I sure didn't have "severe body aches." I went swimming for four hours every day, and walking on the beach after that.

The answer is that yes, I'll get another dose, but only because Spain requires that my most recent dose be within the last 270 days in order to enter the country in October. I'm already well beyond that, so sometime between now and then, I'll need another shot, unless the rules change. Because, you know, "the science" definitively shows that if you've had a dose in the last 270 days, something magical happens.

The bottom line is that my number finally came up. It would have come up if I'd worn a mask all the time, it would have come up if I were boosted - even double-boosted. And you know what? It's probably gonna come up again. Maybe next year. Heck, maybe this year. It's just something that we're going to have to learn to live with. Like those pesky sinus infections that I get on a regular basis. You don't panic, you don't shut down the world, you don't cover your face, you don't plaster Anthony Fauci's mug all over every TV screen in America. You deal with it - and you move on.

5. Is everybody going to eventually get covid? I'll bet not. There are probably people who have never had the flu. I have a friend who has pretty much never worn a mask, will never get vaccinated, and hasn't had covid. He rode his Harley to Sturgis in 2020 (superspreader!), he eats out all the time, he travels (not by plane, but that's personal preference), he goes out in public. And he hasn't had so much as a cold.

Maybe it's his immune system. Maybe it's the luck of the draw. Maybe it's math: there have been about a half-billion cases of covid in the world, out of a global population of nearly 8 billion. Sure, there have probably been a ton of cases that have been unreported, either because the people didn't know they had it, they didn't test, or they tested at home and never went to the doctor. A bunch more have had it twice, maybe more.

Just in the U.S. alone, there have been 84 million reported cases, but that's still just 25% of the population. And note that cases were overstated in 2020 for political reasons, using inflated cycle thresholds to increase positive results, as reported in this blog. But regardless of any noise in the data, it's a fact that most of the U.S. population hasn't had covid. And over 20% of the population - nearly 73 million - haven't had a vaccine dose. And it's fairly safe to say that there's a good correlation between that number and the number of people who never or seldom wore masks.

So there's a good chance that a quarter of the population will never get covid. Is that scientific? Nope, it's a guess, albeit an educated one, based on some math. And you know what? I don't care whether it's scientific or not.

You know what else?

That's right. Covid doesn't, either. Because it's not out to get you. It just ... is. And your number is either gonna come up, or it's not. If it doesn't, it won't be because you're wearing a mask, or because you're vaxxed, boosted, double-boosted, wrapped in bubble wrap, or have a shrine to Anthony Fauci in your backyard. And if it does, it won't be because you flew on planes, went on cruises, rode your Harley to Sturgis, took vacations, and lived your life. Either way, it'll be because ...

Covid don't care.