COVID comes to visit

Thanks, anti-vaxxers/maskers.

My husband came home from work toting what looked like a bad summer cold, so I, the gentle companion, fanged him about staying at work when he felt crappy.

Come home if you’re sick, for cryin’ out loud.

We have been married a long time. He ignored me, mixed up a frothy cocktail of Benadryl and NyQuil, and prepared to sleep it off.

Only he didn’t sleep it off. He got up the next day feeling worse.

Both of us are vaccinated against the coronavirus. Both of us mask up, and we’ve been doing so more lately as Connecticut sees more new cases. Both of us carry hand sanitizer in our cars. Both of us trust science and our own good sense not to stray where we might get infected.

But one of us got infected anyway, with what appears to be the Delta variant, which has moved fast and furious through him with sweats, chills, fever, aches, congestion, mental fogginess, all of it.

Frankly, I cannot imagine dealing with this virus without the protection of a vaccine. The severity of the symptoms — which we hope are abating — are stunning. This smacked, hard.

So here is what the CDC says to do if, no matter how much you batten the hatches, COVID breaks through: If you are directly exposed to COVID and you’ve been vaccinated, you do not have to immediately quarantine, but you should get tested within a few days of exposure. Getting a test these days (at least in Connecticut) is a little more involved than it was a few months ago. You need appointments where once you could just walk up, but there are tests available. I have zero symptoms, made an appointment, and went to a drive-through testing site where I rammed that swab so far up my nose I tickled my forehead. Though I asked for a rapid test, they didn’t have one, so I may wait up to 5 days for my results.

In the meantime, I am quarantined — at least until I get a negative test result. If I test positive — if I have contracted COVID — I stay quarantined for 10 days, which means the first week of classes (mine start Monday) will be conducted online. If I do not have COVID, I am free as a bird, though I will get tested in a few days to make sure I haven’t been infected by exposure to the COVID already in my house. I am not quarantining from the patient. I figure that by the time he got his results, I’d already been exposed, so onward.

I am mentally preparing myself for this kind of stop-and-start semester, though it shouldn’t be like this. We should be farther down the road. There can be no more discussion about the efficacy or safety of the vaccines. The virus has mutated and it is now attacking people who should have been protected. Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are turning the rest of us into petri dishes. Wearing a mask is an act of love. Keeping socially distant for as long as it takes is, as well. Getting vaccinated says you care.

How to say this next part delicately? Never mind. This is no time for delicacy: If you are exposed to COVID and you haven’t been vaccinated, grab your ass and kiss it goodbye. I cannot imagine the human constitution capable of riding this one out. Take it seriously. Take it very, very seriously.