Dear Pulse readers,
That’s my COVID test from a couple of weeks back. After I’d dodged the virus for three years, it finally caught up with me–disabusing me of any notion that I was somehow more robust, more careful or perhaps cleverer than everyone else who’d come down with COVID.
COVID made me feel crummy–achy, feverish and tired–and without any desire to eat.
My doctor prescribed Paxlovid, and I took it.
Did it help? Maybe! Still, it took a good ten days for me to feel almost back to normal.
How things have changed. In early 2020, when the virus first appeared, none of my family and friends came down with it, luckily–and my patients who caught it were frighteningly sick.
Now, it seems as if COVID is everywhere. A number of friends have had it lately, and everyone seems to have handled it just fine.
Has the virus weakened? Are the vaccines doing the trick? Are we experiencing herd immunity?
The CDC tells us that more than a thousand people are dying each week from COVID, so clearly the illness is still a menace. And yet the situation feels so different than three years ago.
The terror is gone.
But with a little effort, I can cast my mind back and recall the sense of fear, the stories reported by my colleagues of isolation and death in hospital wards, and the lives lost to a mysterious and terrifying new illness.
These days, I’m still required to wear a mask when I see patients. I don’t mind. I also wear a mask on the commuter train into work.
I keep trying to talk my patients into taking the latest COVID vaccine. Some are happy to receive it. For others, it’s one shot too many: “No more! I’ve already had three!” They’re not so frightened of COVID anymore, but they are leery of multiple inoculations.
A few patients relent when I tell them that I took the most recent shot without ill effects. One patient eyed me up and down before saying, “Oh, all right.”
What about you? How is COVID–or memories of the pandemic–affecting you these days? This month’s More Voices theme is COVID Redux.
Share your story using the More Voices Submission Form. For more details, visit More Voices FAQs. And have a look at last month’s theme, A Ray of Hope.
Remember, your health-related story should be 40-400 words. And no poetry, please.
We look forward to hearing from you!
With warm regards,
Paul Gross
Editor
7 thoughts on “January More Voices: COVID Redux”
Thanks for publishing your personal story. I contracted what I later realized was Covid in Feb. 2020, before diagnosis was happening, much less vaccinations or Paxlovid. Among other things, I was sick enough to have back spasms from violent coughing.
Having autoimmune issues, doesn’t help and I now have various “mysterious” symptoms which following many tests, have not resulted in a diagnosis. Hypothesis = possible “long Covid”…. Hope you can do some pieces on this issue.
I see almost no masks and fewer people are being vaccinated. They come back from trips or closely packed gatherings or almost no people contact and boom, they have it. I wear masks everywhere and am often the only one. My husband had the first vaccination and no more. He had covid and miraculously I didn’t get it from him. This illness scares me. Good luck with your continued recovery,
Wishing you the very best, Paul, and praying that you escape long COVID.
Herd immunity for Covid is not currently possible, due to rapid mutations and lack of sterilizing vaccines: per Mayo Clinic–“Herd immunity can be reached when enough people in the population have recovered from a disease and have developed protective antibodies against future infection. However, experts now believe it’ll likely be difficult to achieve herd immunity for COVID-19.”
No, it’s not 2020 where no one had any immune response, but we’re in a period of public health neglect re: Covid–in my opinion. And it’s not a benign virus.
I have similar story.
I had no covid for 3 years plus. then early last year I had a severe case of covid with respiratory symptoms. I remained at home and treated myself-I am a physician., retired, up in years. I took all my vacc shots
Covid still with us . We still need masks
Glad to hear you are better, Paul. I had it over this past August in spite of a combination of 5 vaccinations total, and the best news was that as quickly as I became ill, it resolved within the same time period as yours. Definitely not the absolute terror that it would have been a mere 3 years earlier. I went ahead and took a 6th shot to cover the latest variant, and I look forward to the annual combination flu/COVID shot every fall. Like you, I believe personal testimony to patients is an effect tool for vaccine compliance.
And in closing, Happy New Year to you, your family, and your patients…
So sorry you had to brave the beast. That you emerged unvanquished benefits us, your readers. To your good health and a better year!