(no subject)

[seekingferret]

CW: covid

I got word on Thursday evening that someone I saw at Sunday morning davening (masked, everyone vaccinated) had just tested positive for COVID. I passed word immediately to work, and in the morning got a test. As I waited for results, more information trickled in- the guy who'd tested positive had been exposed on Saturday, so it was extremely unlikely that he'd been contagious by Sunday, and add that on top of masked and vaccinated and only within ten feet of him for a thirty second fist jab in lieu of handshake, but it was still safer to get a test and be sure. Test results came in motzaei Shabbbos and are negative, as expected.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the contrast between the actuality of very low risk, and the emotional turmoil of waiting for the results. I took a lot of precautions both before and after the exposure, and as a result of those precautions, and luck, I am fine, is a very nice story to tell yourself. My boss believed it well enough that as long as I stayed masked and made extra effort to distance myself, he was fine with me coming in to work on Friday. But... it's very different to actually believe that story when it's your health on the line. I spent all of Friday and Saturday anxious in spite of everything.

I want to believe that we'll get back to some sort of normalcy, and I feel like for me at least, the barrier is that anxiety. How will I emotionally feel ready enough to relax my guard is an important question separate of how will I intellectually know that it is safe to relax my guard.

Comments

[oracne]

All of this. I only had a secondary contact scare and that was plenty. I cannot wrap my head around people who don't understand that it can actually happen to them and have no worries about wandering around without testing.

It takes me a lot of effort to tamp down what seems to be a perfectly reasonable amount of anxiety about contagion.

[redstapler]

I'm trying to wrap my head around the contrast between the actuality of very low risk, and the emotional turmoil of waiting for the results.

This is extremely a mood. There are so many things I've wanted to do over the last few months that have felt "relatively" safe, given that they were outside, but the number of people made me stay home. I've felt like I probably could have gone and been fine, but if I'd caught covid, I would spend the rest of my life* thinking WAS A MOUNTAIN GOATS CONCERT WORTH THIS????

By the same token, I also feel like I'm being alarmist. My Dad is dealing with some health stuff, and as of now, all three of my siblings have gone to stay with him to help out. He's said explicitly he doesn't want me flying up, that the risk is too great, but I'll be forever waiting for the shoe of "[redstapler] didn't help when Dad was sick!" to fall.

*I'm at particular risk for post-covid myocarditis than most people, so covid has me absolutely terrified.

[chestnut_pod]

Oof, I am very sorry to hear about all of that, and glad that you are in fact well.

[snippy]

I've had these same thoughts and even conversations with people - I'm not sure what it will take for me to (a) acknowledge intellectually that the risk is down to a reasonable level and (b) feel emotionally safe taking even the very small risk of long covid, let alone death.

[kass]

I am glad you tested negative.

I don't know what the answers here are. I don't know what normalcy will be, when new variants are still a thing.

[lirazel]

So glad to hear it was negative and I hope those who were infected recover quickly.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the contrast between the actuality of very low risk, and the emotional turmoil of waiting for the results.

Yes. I've had a bunch of tests (working on campus means I need to get one at least every couple of months or so) and every single time, I'm anxious. Every time.


How will I emotionally feel ready enough to relax my guard is an important question separate of how will I intellectually know that it is safe to relax my guard.

Yes. Obviously that's important on an individual level, but I feel like on a larger cultural level, all of humanity (or at least those of us who took this seriously) has to figure out how to do that as well.

[calledtovienna]

I want to believe that we'll get back to some sort of normalcy, and I feel like for me at least, the barrier is that anxiety. How will I emotionally feel ready enough to relax my guard is an important question separate of how will I intellectually know that it is safe to relax my guard.

Yes, that. I went through the other side of it a few months back, since I ended up catching a breakthrough case in Atlanta. I didn't infect anyone (including my one contact, the partner that I made out with extensively at peak infection, welp). Also, fundamentally, as someone who is vaccinated and relatively healthy, the main symptom was a mild cold, and it was mostly annoying to have to quarantine for a week.

But the anxiety. That was actually the worst symptom.

We have spent two years being told that (a) nobody knows how you can get covid, it is mysterious and ever-increasing and super transmissible (b) covid is basically a death sentence or a life-altering illness, but really, probably, like, a death sentence.

Those numbers look very different when everyone involved is vaccinated (and not otherwise high-risk). Even if you logically believe that "there is a chance that you might have gotten a really bad cold", it is impossible to reconcile that with the emotional weight of the last few years and the complicated politics of people dying.