stay home

Covid positive

Fair warning: today’s newsletter is purely rant. Proceed - or not - at your own risk.

On Monday, after my morning walk, I took a big whiff of my coffee…and smelled nothing. I sort of freaked out and called Grant. We immediately booked Covid tests, but there were no rapid tests within 100 miles and the earliest we could get a test that day was 4pm. Our kids were already at school, so we picked them up and took them to get tested with us. Later that evening, we found out that someone on our basketball team had tested positive that day. We began quarantining and got our tests back this (Thursday) morning: all four of us are positive.

The kids haven’t had any symptoms other than a maybe a headache that Maeve complained about on Saturday night that we didn’t really think anything of. Grant and I have been exhausted, which we had chalked up to not sleeping well after election week but are now wondering when Covid started. I didn’t lose my taste or taste until Monday. All things considered, we are fine: we were healthy to begin with, and we can relatively easily handle two weeks of strict quarantine.

However.

I am beyond frustrated. Since we found out, we have had several people ask us where/how we contracted Covid. Most people are kind and being thoughtful, but from some people, it feels like we’re somehow at fault. Our family has taken this pandemic extremely seriously from the beginning. The fact that we contracted Covid is not out of us not being cautious enough.

We are in this position in which the whole country is on fire and our positive case load is basically a straight vertical line because of an absolute abdication of responsibility from our leadership. It isn’t individual sick people’s fault. If you want to direct your anger at anyone, it should be directed at our leaders. Grant is a libertarian, so we have lots of - colorful and animated - conversations about the role of government, but I don’t care if you’re the most libertarian of people, if there is anytime that requires a centralized, organized response, it is A GLOBAL PANDEMIC.

We are nine+ months into this, and we do not have widespread, reliable rapid testing. This means that, if someone has a headache or a stuffy nose or one of the other symptoms, most of which sound like your run-of-the-mill cold, it takes them 3-4 days to find out if it is just a cold or if it is Covid-19. If you do get tested either because you have some symptoms or because you find out you were exposed to someone who was positive, you are immediately supposed to quarantine until your results come in (again, typically 3-4 days later). My guess is that most people aren’t doing that because they have jobs, their kids have school, and they don’t want to risk taking time off in case they’re negative anyway. Also, we aren’t receiving clear, concise communication about how to handle this from the top.

The way out of this predicament is surveillance level testing for everyone. The experts said that back in March, they said it during the last peak during the summer, they are still saying it now. Surveillance level testing means that we all have access to rapid, reliable testing whether we’re symptomatic or not. It means plenty of healthy - and sick - people are getting tested each and every day. More testing means that we find more cases - and are able to stop the spread of this virus.

When you have a leader who has been vilifying testing and masks for the last nine months, who has repeatedly said the virus will just disappear, who refuses to take responsibility for anything, who doesn’t listen to the experts, who made the pandemic into a false dichotomy between public health and the economy, you end up with a piecemeal approach to a disaster that will exploit every hole in the patchwork quilt of ways we’ve dealt with the pandemic depending on where you are located in the country.

We should not be angry at individuals with Covid-19. Pandemics are not individual problems. Pandemics are system-level problems that require a systematic, widespread, consistent response. Compare us to other countries, even accounting for population, and it is blatantly obvious that this administration has failed us at every turn of this pandemic. I have made no secret of my dislike for this president and his administration, but I do not understand how anyone can still support someone who has so flagrantly misled us - costing us thousands of actual American lives, yes, and also costing all of us our way of life for far longer than has been necessary.

Leaders lead. Leaders take responsibility for their actions. Leaders tell the truth. There is plenty to be angry about, but it should all be directed at our so-called leadership, not at the Americans just doing their best to try to live through this disaster.

Cheers to staying home and staying diligent!

Sara