For accounting purposes, I can pinpoint the day that I noticed the pandemic beginning in earnest to March 16, 2020. The kids would have been heading back to school after their spring break. I had to be in the office one last time to onboard a new hire onto my team. You could argue that March 13 (Friday) was the real start, but for the purpose of this update, we'll keep March 16.
I remember running to the basement over the weekend of March 14-15 and rifling through the painting supplies trying to find respirators so we could run to the grocery store and buy food, as if we'd be in some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland. In fact, I think we still have a few bags of frozen mixed vegetables in our downstairs freezer. 😅
I got my first Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in March 2021, followed by my second. I got a Pfizer/BioNTech booster the first opportunity I could (why not mix-and-match?). My whole family has received the maximum course of shots + boosters.
We're also very serious about masking. When the Delta variant was accelerating, we found tight-fitting KN95 masks and the kids wore them to school. My wife and I wore them to work the few times we went to the office in the fall. We still wear them everywhere we go today.
Point being, we did everything right. We avoided indoor dining and large crowds. We were cautious as we returned to work. We had a bubble that would get together outdoors and sit in a well-distanced semi-circle. We had a lot of COVID-19 tests that we stockpiled and would test peridoically before going out.
The strange thing about COVID, though, is that it'll find you. As of today, my 850 day COVID-free streak was broken by the BA.4/BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron.
COVID in the Household
My wife and I went to the Opera on June 23, and we think it was there that she ended up getting hit with this Sub-variant. She first tested positive on June 26 and would remain so for a hair over two weeks. My son was the next to get it, testing positive on July 5. He tested negative 8 days later.
My daughter and I thought that the worst was behind us and it was smooth sailing. We just had to stay healthy and COVID-free for the next 11 days so we can go on vacation. Little did I know that I'd end up testing positive a day after my son returned a negative antigen test.
My symptoms are light -- I've got some fatigue and body aches with a sore throat and occasional cough, but so far it's nothing I can't manage. I hope that this cycles through quickly and I can leave isolation soon.
In the mean time, I'll be in our bedroom with my work laptop, personal laptop, and iPad, hoping to pass the time with work during the day and Star Wars movies at night.
I just hope my daughter can stay clean so we can all go on vacation together for the first time in 3 years!
