Taking a Foolish Covid Risk

I did a very foolish thing late last month. I did it out of love for my lifelong favorite sport and its practitioners, but that's no excuse.

I went with my wife to a major professional women's bowling tournament and spent two days in a crowded bowling center during a surging pandemic worse than anything the world has experienced since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Yes, I had a great time watching the world's best female professional bowlers compete in arguably their most prestigious tournament. Yes, everyone was masked inside the building. And, yes, we were both fully Modernized. But it wasn't worth the risk of still catching a disease that has killed millions and severely sickened and debilitated many millions more over less than two years. I should have known better. I did know better. But I did it anyway because I felt like I just had to see all those great bowlers up close and personal come what may.

Four days after we returned home, my wife began feeling a little odd. She reported intermittent piercing pains in her head she said she'd never felt before, a somewhat unusually dry if not semi-sore throat, and mild muscle aches and bodily fatigue. She wasn't sure that it wasn't her allergies acting up or something else innocuous, but when those symptoms persisted, she got tested at work for Covid and was informed the next day that she was positive. 

By that time, I was feeling a little "under the weather" as well and even developed some unusual diarrhea for half a day after prolonged lower digestive tract discomfort the day before, so I decided to get tested too. I did that yesterday and am awaiting my result while assuming and acting as though I'm infected until I receive it. And if my result is negative, I'm a little afraid that the exposure I may have had to people infected with Covid while waiting in the long, serpentine line ahead of and behind me outside and inside the testing center may have infected me.

My wife and I now feel almost back to normal, and if one or both of us doesn't take a turn for the worse like has been known to happen with some after they thought they were out of the woods, I will consider us exceedingly blessed.

And I will have learned my lesson. No more needless venturing into precarious places and situations until the pandemic is no more. Yes, maybe my wife didn't catch Covid on our trip. And maybe I don't have it or didn't catch it from the trip either. Maybe I caught it from my wife who caught it somewhere else, or I caught it somewhere else. But it doesn't much matter. The aforementioned "lesson" is to not take needless risks in the time of surging Covid-19 no matter how tempted I am to do so.

Coronavirus by Mail?

Something "funny" just happened. Right after I read and shared a NYT article assessing the risks of being infected by handling delivered mail, my doorbell rang. I walked to the door wondering if it was my neighbor or notification that a Costco grocery package my wife ordered Monday night had been left on the porch even though we weren't expecting it for several more days.

Looking through the peephole, I discovered that it was neither. It was a mail carrier holding a small package I wasn't expecting. So, I opened the door and greeted him and asked if he could just leave the package on the porch. But, of course, he couldn't. It was a package from Thailand and I had to sign for it. So, I signed for it by holding the mail carrier's electronic device and using his pen that had been handled by heaven knows how many people before me, and then I took the package.

The aforementioned article I read and shared said the chances of becoming infected by handling delivered envelopes or packages appear to be minimal although not out of the question. Okay. But what about taking and handling the electronic signature device and pen from the mail carrier and then the package?

Had I thought to be more careful, I could have asked the mail carrier to leave the signing device and package on the porch and step back at least six feet. But, under the circumstances, my mind didn't work that quickly. Actually, I've always been kind of slow on my metaphorical feet if not on my actual ones.

Yes, I washed my hands thoroughly with lots of soap after the encounter. But I've recently been reading, somewhat confusingly, that we're much more likely to become infected by breathing in virus particles expelled into the air by infected people in close proximity than by transferring virus from our contaminated hands to our mouth, nose, or eyes. So, it would seem that I incurred my greatest risk not from the signature device, pen, and package but from the mail carrier himself.

I surmise that the risks from all were vanishingly small. Or were they? These are very uncertain times that leave one anxiously second-guessing so many things.