I Just Got COVID-19 Last Week. This Isn’t Over Yet, People
Image: Mufid Majnun via Unsplash
Last week, about 30 San Franciscans were still testing positive for COVID-19 every day. I am one of them.
I was exposed to someone who didn’t know they had it. People, I have to tell you to please don’t let your guard down, please stay determined with the masks, social distancing, and staying home as much as possible. I’m fine and I have no symptoms, but I am carrying the virus and stuck in self-isolation. Please send whiskey, uplifting animated GIFs, and nudes.
NOTE: I am not Broke-Ass Stuart. I am a contributor to the Broke-Ass Stuart website, as Broke-Ass Stuart does not write all of the articles that appear on BrokeAssStuart.com. As far as we know, Broke-Ass Stuart does not have COVID-19 right now.
In San Francisco, the email above is the first thing you see when you have COVID-19. The MyChart system sends you an email alert about two hours after your test. (The results come fast these days.) You immediately start bargaining with yourself that the “Standard Range – Negative (internal QC ok)” field is your actual result, even though you know in your heart it is not.
Then you get the text from the California Department of Public Health, and you know shit’s real. They ask whether you want to sign up for the Exposure Notification system, which will send alerts to anyone you may have also exposed. That’s a personal decision, but I signed up, I did it. It is “based on technology built by Apple and Google,” and I don’t trust those assholes one bit. But the system is actually being administered by public health professionals, who care more about saving lives than making a profit, and I do trust those people.
The San Francisco DPH will call you too, and — hey-o! — they deliver you a bunch of food! They don’t want you to leave the house so they send you a supply of groceries. It’s not really nice stuff, it’s “what they have.” But it will help get you through your 10 days of self-isolation (which can go even longer if you develop symptoms), and self-isolation is even more severe than quarantine.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I have no symptoms, and I’ve been blowing a 98.6 on the thermometer twice a day since I tested positive. But I’m living proof (living for now, at least!) that this is not over and you can still catch COVID-19. You are not fully vaccinated until two weeks after your second dose. And even though things are slowly reopening, please keep it up with the mask-wearing, distancing, and hand-washing, and avoid unnecessary travel.
Because you know that dumb phase people keep saying that “We’re all in this together”? Not when you get COVID-19, you’re not. When you test positive for COVID-19, for at least the next 10 days, you are in this very much alone.
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