My first common cold since the pandemic hit: Is it COVID?
“Bless you.”
I’ve been told this too many times these past few days.
Typically, I’m appreciative when someone tells me “bless you” after I sneeze. Not so much this past week. I’ve been sneezing nonstop since returning home from a family gathering on Easter Sunday. I didn’t feel blessed. I felt a cold coming on.
Sore throat. Nasal congestion. Nagging cough. Fatigue. Body aches. You know, just another common cold that I likely caught from a family member. But ... but everything is different in our post-pandemic world, as you may have already experienced. Our thought process can go from zero to 60 in no time flat when we first get sick. Our mind races. Our fears tap us on the shoulder.
“Do you think it’s COVID?” my fiance asked me.
She was the first person to remind me of our new reality with the question that’s likely been asked millions of times over the past two years. COVID may have crossed my mind in between coughs and sneezes, though I’ve received all my recommended vaccination shots. Has it ever crossed your mind when you’ve felt ill since April 2020? This is the lingering aspect that I detest about COVID-19 and its multiple variants. Even when it’s not present, it is.
This mutating virus has become a domestic terrorist in every country. It has the frightening ability to terrorize us in its absence, similar to the potential threat of terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. If you recall, we shared the same fears: What city could be next? Which skyscraper would be a target? Could it be a nearby steel mill? This is how fear distorts reality. One possibility at
a time.
COVID fears have a similar capability, with incredibly higher death counts compared to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Each day, nearly 400 Americans continue to die from complications of this virus. According to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 500 million cases have been diagnosed worldwide, resulting in 6.2 million deaths. Most of us are potentially a live target for a virus that has no predetermined flight path of mass infection. This relatively new biological threat is an entirely different kind of terrorism for us. There’s no vaccine to inoculate us from our fear.
“Should you test yourself for COVID?” my fiance asked. I guess so, I replied with another sneeze.
Our home has had testing kits tucked away since receiving a few from the government months ago. I honestly thought those kits would remain unused until I stumbled onto them in 5 or 10 years while searching for medicine in our bathroom. This is what happened when I searched for cough syrup last week and stumbled onto a half-empty bottle from 2006. (Yes, 2006. Gulp.)
I opened the free testing kit, jammed a swab up my nose and waited for the result to magically appear in the indicator window.
I’ve been tested twice before at public facilities, but both times were strictly for columns, not for concerns I would actually test positive. This latest test was more serious. The fact that I lost my ability to taste and smell played with my head. Was it from a common cold or a COVID-19 variant? I couldn’t complain either way. I’ve had a good run of great health for more than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic was formally declared. I didn’t get a sickness of any kind. No cold. No flu. Not even a sniffle.
As I was reminded this week, getting sick can be humbling. And getting COVID can be concerning. Never in my life have I been more cognizant of other people’s germs and social habits. This heightened awareness can also play with our mind.
COVID cases may not be front page news every day, as it once was, but it’s still in the back of our minds. I’ve never been an alarmist about the pandemic and its death grip on our nation. I’ve routinely downplayed our collective hysteria while respecting COVID-19’s fatal capabilities. Whatever your viewpoint, 2021 was the deadliest year in U.S. history, with COVID-19 cast as the main culprit, according to federal data.
“Jerry, I know it’s a hot-button issue but would you consider doing more background stories on the deaths caused by COVID,” a reader asked via email while I wrote this column. “I have no close family members who died, but a couple of co-workers who have. At some level, it concerns me that an additional 1 million people have died and, as a nation, we have learned very little.”
That reader is right. We’ve learned a lot, yet we’ve learned very little. COVID remains a mystery virus that continues to infect and kill too many of us. This is why our fear of it is valid, unlike so many other fears we share, from sharks and snakes to flying in airplanes and crowded spaces. The likelihood of any of these common fears seriously endangering our life is astronomical.
The odds are less astronomical for COVID and its ever-mutating chance of infecting us, hospitalizing us or killing us. It’s real. And it’s a form of emotional terrorism that we will have to get accustomed to. One test at a time.
On Friday, I ended up testing negative for COVID, but I tested positive — again — for the fear of contracting it.