Entering the year 3 of the pandemic
1/2/22 Visiting good will at the end of a year, smooth and pleasant 🙂
In the recent few years, everybody has many decisions and much information to process related to the pandemics. Here, I share some of my observations and personal experiences.
I see the way to avoid covid (1) vaccination (2) social distancing (3) wear masks (simple and nothing new).
Vaccination: Two of my friends went to a family party. The wife got covid and the husband did not. He just had J&J shot a week before the party. One of my friends’s officemate got confirmed after a few days of symptoms (in these few days, this officemate has been working in the same office with my friend 8/5). She had no problem. We have been in person teaching the whole semester and I often received students’ note on he/she is under covid, but I haven’t heard any of my colleagues get infected.
When came to the omicron, things are a little different. I have seen how the curve is taking off in NYC in the recent two weeks. Obviously, omicron is quite contagious and more likely break through. But if it came in so fast, hopefully it can go out very fast too. So a few days ago, I wrote to a few folks in NYC, “I am packed and can move in on Jan 2. Just waiting for the omicron waves down a bit” My landlord said “trust your instinct”. My collaborator said “Welcome to the city. I am having a Covid and currently under quarantine. I am feeling alright …” We probably can see the omicron waves soon everywhere else. Surfing gracefully, everybody!
Many people are afraid of the side effect of vaccination. There is some fake news from a doctor in Maryland who was saying how mRNA vaccination can compromise your immunization system for detecting cancer, lol. I have not seen other vaccination has been questioned that much?
Social distancing: my educated guess is that the droplets are the major way to transmit the disease (I remember early in the pandemic, the Chinese media said “we are not sure if it is transmittable among people”, I was like “come on, many people are infected, how it is not transmittable among people?”). I think in the most of the cases, it takes certain amount of exposure to get infected. So walking passing a person should be okay to me. My mom wears her mask whenever she sees a person walking towards us on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, I think eating and spending time at a crowded restaurant/bar/coffeeshop, boarding on a crowed train, parties, … the places where people can stay close for a while with talking/ laughing are dangerous. The most contagious virus I have experienced is chicken pox. I got infected during my interview trip. As far as I know, I have zero interactions with people who had chicken pox. I must get it through breathing the air in the crowded airport?! Hopefully omicron is not something like this to the vaccinated people, and then things are more under our control.
Masks: good quality masks make a difference. There was one time, I had interacted with one of my friends for about an hour, talked within one meter with our masks on. Later I knew that she was back from a party (a week ago), and already had symptoms of covid during the time we met. Luckily, I was okay. One of my son’s day care teachers was diagnosed as covid. All the kids are okay and I think the masks they wear whole day helped.
You want to see a diversity of people’s choice during covid? some of my friends never show up in front of us since pandemic for about 2 years now; some of my friends keep their kids completely home schooling since pandemic; some of my friends are still socially active and visit her friends without restrictions but test often. My parents spent thousand of dollars to quarantine themselves after their arrival before seeing us; China makes the top news and locks down the entire region every time there are a few confirmed cases …
I tried to keep the rhythms of my life and modified it a bit when the covid risks are high. I see the way of dealing with covid is don’t panic! I had friends who got covid before the vaccination era (some of them have medical conditions even). They just survived fine. A simple tip I learned is to get the virus in control as early as possible. Sleeping + a lot of fluid + vitamins are the things that will never go wrong for any type of recoveries.
Stay safe and enjoy the ride, my beloved 2022.