Double Vaxed, Boosted, and Now I Have Covid. Dang!

I guess you could call this the Covid Trifecta, a perfect Covid storm. I am double vaccinated, I have had my booster, and now I have tested positive for Covid. And I, for one, am royally ticked off… not to mention surprised. 

I was not one of these fearful people sprinting to get those new vaccines immediately jabbed into my arm. I am not old, vulnerable, or believe that my cause of death will read, rode the Central Line without a mask.  

Nor am I an anti-vac conspiracy theorist with too much furloughed time on my hands. Convinced that the Chinese are looking to eradicate the world, the Russians are looking to control our minds, or the microchip tracking device swimming in our vaccinated veins is just waiting for a signal from the Mothership to call us all home.

The world is fearful and distrusting right now, of the disease, and of the cure. And I, for one, get it. But I am not ruled by either of these fears.

That doesn’t mean I am fearless. You only need to sit beside me on a plane to know that or drag me into dodgy-looking Curry House.  

Vaccinations mandates are not new news. In 1853, the British government introduced mandatory nationwide smallpox vaccination, eventually eradicating the disease. We required vaccinations to go to school, as did our children. I believe in vaccines. One need look no further than the countries that have been vaccinated against Tuberculosis to those countries that have not.

Last year, in 2020, 1.5 million people died from Tuberculosis. 1.5!!!! That is more than people who died from Covid in the same period.

So, why do most of us privileged people not know that? Because the vast majority of those deaths come from countries too poor to vaccinate against the contagious disease. We, who are lucky enough to be vaccinated, most of us from childhood, have not heard of anyone contracting tuberculous, little alone dying from it. Yet Covid, you can’t go a day without it slamming us upside the head.

I have been vaccinated to live my life, travel the world, go to a concert, socialize, and do my part to unburden the healthcare system.

I have no idea how I contracted Covid as I have been busy the last two weeks editing my book. So my social, cocktail-driven lifestyle, flitting from one swanky place to another had been seriously curtailed even before I got The Vid.

But as I sit, write, bitch, sneeze, cough, and deal with what feels like nothing more than your garden variety cold, one in the good old days would not have kept me out of the office, I’m now scrambling to rearrange my Christmas calendar.

In this, my annoyance, I did ask myself one question, and I thought it a good one. 

Is this a problem or an inconvenience? 

Answer: It is an inconvenience.

With no Ph.D. attached to my name, I am grateful I have been vaccinated. Yes, I was surprised I tested positive, yes I am super bummed, and yes, I have better things to do during this super social season than to be self-isolating in my flat watching old Laurence Olivier movies. But compared to others, I am tremendously lucky. I know several people close to me who aren’t vaccinated, contracted Covid, and were very sick. Fortunately, I know no one who has died…yet.

So as I now refocus my Christmas shopping online, cancel events and reschedule others, I have to say thank you science. 

I am not thrilled to be stuck in my flat over the Christmas season, but I am not lying in a hospital bed having a machine breathing for me.

So, to you, my readers, all I can wish for this Covid Christmas Season (cough) is that my varied-sourced antibodies allow me to board a plane somewhere warm, sometime soon, hug with purpose, and I do not get anyone else sick.

This is an inconvenience, not a problem and I believe I have science to thank for that. So I say, Merry Christmas, be safe, and stay healthy. And as it was proven to Geroge Bailey, although it is not perfect, it really is a wonderful life.