“How have you not got it yet?” my sister asked six months ago. It was an amazing feat. Through good luck and preventative measures, we somehow got through life covid-free.
Until last month. After three years of evading it, the little pathogen that allegedly originated in a furry raccoon dog in Wuhan, China finally entered our home.
For our teenaged daughter, it started and ended with only a cough. We have much to thank the pandemic gods for sparing our youth from severe symptoms.
My 35-year-old co-worker tells the story about how covid “hit him like a truck” while his seven-year-old, also testing positive, could not have felt better. While he lay lifelessly in bed, his boy ran around free of symptoms, school and sorrow (the lack of sympathy for his father was appalling).
One could forgive the younger generation for being more careless in their behaviour as the pandemic took hold. They had far less to lose. The same doesn’t hold true for the elderly and immunocompromised who are still dying, but without the headlines (Saskatchewan reported 95 covid deaths in the first three months of 2023).
The two o’clock notifications identifying covid cases by region are now long in the past. Masks aren’t even required in hospitals anymore. It’s like the virus never existed.
I’m not sure what to make of it all because the virus still felt novel to me and my wife. Fully vaccinated with boosters, we felt sicker than we had in many years with symptoms that were common – severe headache (almost migraine-like), cough, and fever – and others that were... unusual.
The common flu doesn’t affect one’s tastebuds, but seven days after testing positive for covid, I suddenly couldn't taste. For the most part it’s come back, but just the other day as I dug into a piece of chocolate cake, I lost it again. Darn you, covid!
A friend of ours has had to live with a phantom smell that resembles gas fumes ever since her second bout of covid a year ago – something that comes and goes but hasn’t fully left her.
While not pleasant, these are mild after-effects compared to those who live with dreaded long covid – where constant fatigue and brain fog prevent people from working and living fully. My wife is still dealing with chest pains and is awaiting further tests. We can only hope this is not a long-term issue.
The impacts of a new virus running through an entire human population will only be fully known years from now. One can only imagine the effect of a deadlier virus for which we have no vaccine nor willingness to comply with restrictions. Imagine the resistance that will erupt the next time government mandates mask-wearing.
According to some recent analysis, the United States is ill-prepared for another pandemic due in part to the backlash against covid measures. Yet it could happen sooner than we think. Viruses have no timetable for when and where they might erupt and have been visiting human populations quite regularly over the past few decades. There was SARS in the early 2000s – extremely contagious and deadly before it mysteriously disappeared; Ebola in the 2010s – even deadlier but better contained; and now covid-19, a milder SARS that may never leave us.
Not to get too negative – something that can happen after a week of isolation – but I don’t think we’ll ever be out of the woods when it comes to deadly, novel viruses. They’re part of nature and we’re infringing more and more on this delicate domain.
On the positive side, after three long years of death, isolation and societal division, covid does seem to be gradually losing its bite.
Speaking of which, it may be time to get back to that chocolate cake.
