COVID-19 Chronicles: Contact Tracing

Setback today, vertigo worse than ever this morning, walking like the V8 guy. Leaning Tower of Housewife. Normally I am the kind of annoying person who can do tree pose on a paddle board, now I can’t stand up straight on a dare.

Telling you this because if your vestibular system ever gives you trouble, you have to plan for this. I have almost fallen over sideways several times, worried I will fall and hit my head on the counter. Please be safe dear.

Dizzy, can usually solve with more hydration.

Crashing, go take a nap.

Bonking, get your blood sugar up, keep eating.

Light-headed, blood rushing to face, sit down!

Vertigo, not sure what to tell you, limit time that you get up, avoid leaning over.

Malaise, just feeling ill - stare into space and wait a week, that’s what I’ve been doing

Gulping air couple times an hour, constricted feeling around lower ribs like super-tight bra band, making me feel mentally out of it, hard to finish my sentence sometimes. Not going to lie to you, I am no longer convinced that I will survive this. Sorry to tell you that. I am trying hard. If I wind up in the hospital I will be on the “nice try” list, middle-aged and no pre-existing conditions, also I am nobody.

It’s okay. Save a nurse, save a doctor, save an EMT, save a teacher, save someone who has a child. I am totally okay with this, it is fair and right, it makes sense. For that matter give my spot to one of the homeless combat veterans.

Nobody owes me anything.

Understand I am cataloguing my symptoms to help others recognize to sit down and stay home. I didn’t know I was sick. I beat myself up for being a hypochondriac and a stress case, called myself lazy. GET TO WORK inefficient economic productivity unit. The day I first felt ill, I talked myself out of it because I had a major sneezing fit and that “proved” to me that it was “just allergies.” If I had known I was exposed to someone who tested positive, I would have paid attention.

Instead of going to the grocery store the very next day. May God forgive me. I can only hope that I did not infect anyone.

This is why I am now going to talk about contact tracing and why I know for an absolute fact that the official statistics are wrong.

See my diagram? That is the table where I sat down with my five friends and an out-of-town guest. The connecting lines are to our partners/family and others I know were exposed.

Now get ready for a little murder mystery dinner theater type thing. Was gonna call it Death Brunch (great title) but so far all of us have lived and it’s a bit too on the nose, morbid! Virus Brunch instead.

At the north end. My friend who tested positive. Upholder, early bedtime, super responsible person. CAME TO BRUNCH WITH SORE THROAT. I ask of you.

Across from her, guest from Chicago, in town for a few days, she and husband ALSO ALREADY SICK. Flew back either that day or the next if I recall correctly.

That’s the mystery. Positive testing person travels for work, at least three confirmed positive cases at her company of 3000+ employees, many of whom travel all the time.

WHO GAVE IT TO WHOM?

Did Chicago guests bring it to us and my friend brought it to her work? Or did she pick it up at her work and give it to them? Or did everyone involved get it from community spread?

Nobody will ever know because nobody from any agency has made even the faintest pretense of contact tracing. I didn’t even find out that I was exposed until the night of March 30, two weeks later, because my friends were too sick to think to call me.

When I called my doctor, he was skeptical that I had it because my symptoms hadn’t developed sooner. In my opinion that is an unscientific attitude borne of scarcity. But I understand because they are in triage mode. It’s far, far too late to start contact tracing now, horse is out of the barn.

Okay, back to table. Middle seat on west side. She and positive tester train together. Their personal trainer and two of his other clients also got sick. Sounds like they are better now. Incidentally trainer is Special Forces combat veteran, probably pretty mad he had to fight something he couldn’t shoot. All of this group are younger and fitter than me.

I think J and T already had coronavirus before the brunch, that’s why they got sicker sooner than I did. They hang out a few times a week and probably exposed people at bars and restaurants too.

Okay, probably enough to prove my point, which is that ONE PERSON in this group tested positive while EIGHT other people got sick and did not get a test. At LEAST fourteen people were directly exposed all together, not including colleagues, waiters, bartenders, other people at gym, grocery stores, EVERYONE AT LAX and on plane to Chicago, EVERYONE AT O’HARE, etc. For instance there are 72 units in our apartment building with shared elevator/lobby and roughly 100 residents, most of whom are 60+ in age.

Virus Brunch was on 3/15. Governor Newsom gave our stay-at-home order four days later.

Let me tell you something about contact tracing. Having to make the calls to tell people you have exposed them to the novel coronavirus is... awful. Never in my life have I felt so sick with guilt. “Sorry, father of three, go tell your wife I may have just killed you all.” Fortunately the two people I saw after I was exposed both laughed it off, we stayed 6’ apart, that was two weeks ago, no worries! One offered to bring us anything we needed and buy our groceries. The other has been texting my hubby each day to check in on me and hope I feel better.

Humbling.

This is the attitude I hope to carry with me. This is nobody’s fault. My friends acted under Old Rules, the old “keep your commitments” and “don’t inconvenience anyone” and “hide your symptoms, how embarrassing” rules. Even if I blamed them, after going through the rigors and experiencing COVID-19, I know it now. Penance is paid. Consider yourself shriven.

If I have ever harmed you, hurt your feelings, annoyed you in any way, please, imagine me in my sickbed and can that go toward my tally?