The "Post-Covid" Era Sucks Rocks

(and spoiler alert — it's not really post-covid...)

In December, I went to a conference, came home with a slight cold, then came down with covid a week later (right before Christmas). Yes, for those of you counting along at home, it was bout #3 with covid, despite having all the vaccinations possible and masking religiously during the height of the pandemic (I admit I don't mask much now, though I do when I myself am feeling sick, and on flights).

I then proceeded to get some kind of terrible virus, complete with 5 straight days of fever, on New Year's Eve that killed off all our plans, and I just a few days ago got a bad cold that has felled me for the past couple of days, even as I have stubbornly tested negative for covid.

Beatrix, on the other hand, turned 16 last Friday, had a friend sleep over on Saturday, and came down with covid on Sunday. Happy Sweet 16, honey! She has a long weekend coming up so school is not as much of a stress, but it means she missed auditions for the big school musical, and scrambled to turn in a video audition with about 10% of her voice as a hail mary.

But I digress. What I'm really thinking about is how much our attitude toward covid has changed, and I am wondering if that's a good thing.

At the end of the school year in 2021, just after vaccinations had been approved for teens, Beatrix was in part of a group of several girls eating outside together. That was the time when we all tested regularly, even with no symptoms, and one of the girls had a (perhaps false) positive. The entire group was quarantined for 10 days, missing the end of their school year and all of the events (and by that time the school had basically given up on online learning, so basically summer vacation came early).

Now, she has an actual positive, getting the positive just a few hours after symptoms started on Sunday. Luckily, there is a long weekend, because current CDC guidance is 5 days isolation and then return to school (masking for another 5 days), even if she is still testing positive. Which I suppose is better than the upcoming CDC change, which is return to activities after 24-hours fever free. In Beatrix's case, that would mean NO isolation, because her case of covid is not fever-symptomatic.

No wonder we're in the second-highest covid surge ever.

I guess if I were to err one way or the other, I would rather err towards the 2021 isolation. But that's not where we are as a society now. And I need to figure out what that means for a lot of things.

At the same time, we're societally still not really going *out.* Restaurants are still on reduced hours. People are not going to events.

I think the only thing we have really learned is to not do things when we are sick. Some of us. I cancelled events yesterday and today, but that seems to be more unusual than not.

And I can't help but wonder what the long-term repercussions are, maybe because I am just 11 years younger than my mom was when she died. We've stopped talking about long covid, but that does not mean it does not exist. 

It's like we have the worst of all worlds.

(someone needs to haul me out for a drink, I clearly think depressing thoughts when mulling on this)