You can't run and you can't hide

It took almost three years, but Covid finally caught up to Kathleen and me about a week ago... and we are now on the backside of the illness (which resembled a bad cold more than anything else). The timing could have been worse, since we are confident that we will be well past the infectious stage (not to mention the sneezing/coughing stage) by the time Saturday rolls around. That is when we fly to Seattle for Christmas.

I am thankful that we both had our flu shots (super shots for seniors!) as well as five total vaccine shots, with the most recent being in September for the Omicron variant, which is likely what got us in the end. But we are not in the hospital or dead or otherwise impaired... and that could be sheer luck but more likely is due to the support our aging immune systems received from our various shots, not to mention staying home more than we would have guessed prior to the pandemic.

We have discussed how and where and when we might have been exposed... and we might have exposed one another in the end. There are no good answers since we were among several large groups in the past couple weeks, mostly involving holiday concerts and churches. We aren't sure exactly when we became "positive," since that may happen days before any symptoms show.

We finally did those at-home tests last Thursday, despite feeling that our colds were exactly like past colds, pre-pandemic, so today may mark one week of Covid, or maybe a bit more. The CDC says on its site that all should be well about five days after symptoms subside, so we feel OK about flying (masked) to Seattle on Christmas Eve.

We have delayed getting together with Lesley, Ian, and girls until after we return from Seattle "in an abundance of caution." as they say.

Bottom line: we feel fortunate that our Covid encounter didn't overwhelm, though today's story that China now predicts up a million deaths from Covid in the next few months is sobering. 

They seem to face some of the same problems the U.S. did in suffering our own million deaths over the past three years. China's extreme lockdown policies appear to have simply delayed the inevitable, and they have not convinced most of their elderly to get vaccines, etc. Their own vaccines may not be as effective, which may end up being one of those "national pride" situations that backfire. Who knows?

The U.S. deaths now are concentrated among the over-65 population (90 percent!), and it turns out that being old equals being vulnerable to this virus, no matter the race or location of the population. 

We are hopeful that we did not inadvertently spread the virus while infectious, but I suppose we can only feel a tiny bit of guilt. After all, the virus is everywhere and we are all behaving as if it's no big deal. I never really believed we were invulnerable, but going so long without catching even a minor illness might have led us to taking a few extra chances. Perhaps we were blissfully "naive."

At some point, though, we have to come to grips with the fact that we did everything we could, for as long as we could. My hope is that our systems are now even more strongly protected, since our immune systems were called upon to fight the nasty bug. We may be stronger in the coming year.

Maybe the virus is not a big deal at this point for a huge chunk of the Western World population, but tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who will be suffering and dying in 2023.