Risk Assessment

I no longer feel like I have the ability or the tools to adequately gauge my risk of contracting Covid.

Liz and I have been pretty good about things, ever since we started working from home back in March of 2020. We’ve been careful, take precautions, and even now don’t really go out all that much beyond errands.

We’ve taken to going out for brunch, once a week, on Sunday mornings. This has us indoors, around strangers, inside, with no masks on. This has been an acceptable amount of risk to us.

Lately, I don’t know what to think. I know there’s a new variant (BA.2). I know that it has a higher rate of infection, but that the results (severe reactions, hospitalizations) are not increased at all from Omicron. I don’t know what to make of it.

There’s a big part of me that’s just tired of Covid. I imagine much of the country (and the world) feels the same way. Many/Most/Some of us have been taking steps for going on 2+ years now, and that level of vigilance can only be maintained for so long.

As far as I know, Liz and I have not gotten Covid. I think we had a small spell of some kind of cold in 2020, but nothing I could look back on and say “That must have been Covid.”

Many people I know have gotten in. A large part of Liz’s family has gotten it. I’ve got coworkers who’ve gotten in. And so far, I think Liz and I have been lucky.

There’s a move to have folks return to the office, at my work place. It’s optional, but many folks are going back into the office two days a week. I’ve not felt comfortable about this, and I’ve held off going back. I struggle a lot with this.

I’m ok to go out to eat. I’m ok to go have a nice dinner at a restaurant. But I won’t go in to work, apparently. To be honest, this decision makes me feel incredibly selfish. I feel like I’m not a good employee or coworker (I am), by choosing to not go into the office.

But while I’m fine to be inside somewhere for a few hours for a meal… I’m hesitant to be inside numerous closed rooms, with a lot of other people. At our work, we have to show proof of vaccination, so presumably everyone’s got their jabs. But it still feels risky to me.

There’s that word again, risky.

Here’s a story: this week, Liz actually had an in-person meeting she attended at DePaul. To date, she’s been working from home just like me… and the few times she’s returned to the office, it’s been to pick up random things in the evening. Or we’ve gone together, and just holed up in our own offices. The thing is: everyone else at her work is at home, and her floor is mostly/almost deserted.

So this week – she got called to an in-person meeting at DePaul. So she goes, and it’s literally the first in-person meeting she’s had in over 2 years. Two days after the meeting… she gets a phone call. It’s from DePaul’s contact tracing team.

Turns out, someone in her meeting came down with Covid. And so everyone at the meeting was notified.

Liz took a Rapid test, and was negative. And a few days later, after a second test, continued to be negative. No symptoms, which was good.

But the one meeting, this one time… the first in over two years?. And she comes in contact with someone who, it turns out, had Covid.

I really don’t know how to gauge risk, anymore. I heard from Liz that the person who came down with Covid has been incredibly, incredibly careful, even more so than us, because her coworker has young children at home. But despite those precautions, they still somehow got it.

I’m less concerned now about hospitalization, which I guess is a good thing. And truth be told, I’m not really concerned for myself at all… but more for Liz, who has asthma. And the last thing I want for my asthmatic wife is a respiratory disease. I weigh nearly all sense of risk against risk to her.

Long Covid is the thing I feel like I’m trying to avoid, now. All these linger and longer term effects that we are still trying to figure out.

I don’t know if things are worse or better out there. I don’t know if I’m ok going into restaurants and bars because it’s less risky, or because I’m just getting tired of precautions. I don’t know if the state of the world is getting better, or if I’m just getting lazier.

I keep waiting for things to turn bad again. Which isn’t a great or healthy approach. But the last two years seem to foster this kind of apprehension.

Covid, I’ve learned, means different things to different people because everyone has different risk thresholds. And for me? Lately? I’m having a hard time telling where mine are.

[photo via John Moeses Bauan]

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