Here’s a quick and dirty summary of consensus health advice over the past couple of years:
     • Easier: regularly wash hands, avoid handshakes, and cover up when you cough or sneeze.
     • Harder: mask-up, avoid packed gatherings and socially distance in general.
     • Critical: get fully vaccinated+boosted, and test and quarantine as needed.
     • Exhausting: don’t let up until Covid has been reduced to a more acceptable threat.
         Whatever and whenever that is.

Recently, Julia and I received additional medical advice: “Do what you want. I mean, what does it really matter?”

These words were directed at me (Bob) as I lay in an ER bed struggling to get over Covid. After contracting Covid the prior week, I had thankfully tested negative with an at-home antigen test. However, my symptoms remained, one being I had become severely dehydrated. This is what sent me to the ER. Fortunately, fluid from two IV bags worked their magic. While my antigen test was negative, the hospital’s PCR test showed I still had Covid in my body. And I felt it.

So, I asked if I should continue to quarantine, if so, for how long, and when should I test again. (Julia had mild symptoms despite testing negative 4 times while I was sick.) The ER nurse looked at me quizzically and responded with the above quote to do what I wanted. Was she telling me the PCR test results were no cause for concern since my lungs were clear and I (we) have had all the vaccines and boosters one can get and I had also completed a round of Paxlovid to protect me?

Or rather, and truly worrisome, was she opining any attempt to mitigate future risk to me and those around me would just be a waste of time because this recent strain of Covid is everywhere and there is no escaping it, and it’s probably not life threatening anyway? We’re both pretty sure it was this latter train of thought.

I (half-) jokingly told Julia that unless you are bleeding out or suffering a heart attack, some ER professionals maybe have a hard time getting too worked up about most anything else these days, especially with a virus that continues to re-re-burn through a population that has “moved on”. I imagined my question for the nurse was as if a dam had burst and I was asking her if I should put on my galoshes. Yeah, go ahead, knock yourself out.

While neither Julia nor I agreed with her response, doesn’t it seem like this is where we are as a country right now? Exhausted by the effort of it all, viewing Covid as a lesser inconvenience than masking and long Covid as a minimal risk. Of course, long Covid is not a minimal risk, especially for the unvaccinated, repeat catchers, those who become very sick with Covid, people with underlying health conditions, and… well, you get the idea.

Three weeks out from Covid and deep in the mountains of Colorado, I’m still feeling fatigued, especially in the high altitude. If I took the nurse’s advice literally, I would be on my bike flying down a mountain road right now. But it’s the pedaling back up the road that would truly be futile at the moment. I’m thinking tomorrow is the day I assert myself and do what I want. Let’s see if my body supports my opinion.  

Cheers,
Bob and Julia

Note: Header photo is the town of Ouray, Colorado as seen from the Amphitheater Campground.