I tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, January 21st, 2022. This came on the heels of a negative test result roughly 24 hours prior.

The level of spread that week was sky-high across the country, in my county and the greater Bay Area — and remains so today. I woke up Thursday morning with discomfort swallowing; not really a ‘sore throat’ by definition–one of the anecdotal characteristics I’d been reading about related to the Omicron variant–just discomfort. This, during a surge in the pandemic where record levels of transmission and confirmed cases are occurring on a daily basis across my County, the Bay Area, and the Nation at large–and in multiples greater than in any surge thus far.

I took a single “Quick-VUE”TM COVID test that Thursday, but the results came back with no sign of infection. Less than 30 seconds later I’d created and established a (the dumbest) narrative in which I had simply caught an odd cold somehow — while still avoiding the #1, top, most communicable thing in circulation (on the whole damned planet) today.

Motivated reasoning doing its finest work inside my head. Sufficient information abounded. I was revisiting it often. But the moment a data point arrived to convince me that all the other data should be discounted and that the outcome I wanted was most likely, I was able to just erase the idea of Covid from my mind for another 16 or 20 hours.

Even the test kit instructions themselves stated that two tests needed to be taken no less than 24 hours apart for it to be considered a diagnostic tool. The next day the second test’s results came back positive and testing since then confirmed those results as well.

so yeah…

My course of the disease thus far (your mileage may vary!)

  • Thursday AM: discomfort swallowing
  • Thursday PM: increasing cold-like symptoms by 4pm escalating all night (sinus congestion, headache, significant body aches)
  • Friday AM: very little sleep; cold/flu-like symptoms still escalating.
  • Friday PM: peak symptoms begin to decline by mid afternoon
  • Saturday AM: symptoms begin to decline, but chest congestion begins (its kind of a mind-fuck, this…)
  • Satuday PM: body ache is completely gone, slightly productive coughs and still background noise headaches and tiredness. (I should note one can add lethargy to all of these days thus far)
  • Sunday AM: the cough and the lack of abundant energy remain, although I do want to ride my bicycle trainer (but don’t)
  • Sunday PM: did everyone see that Bills-Chiefs game? Amazing!!!
  • Monday AM: Staring at a test kit, devoid of any real symptom (I can sense faint, minor chest congestion if I really try to feel it)
  • Monday PM: I take a Binax-NOW test thinking it’s early, but just maybe I can nab my first negative test results.

It came back Positive. Oh well. I should also note here that I’ve had three doses of Moderna with a booster shot in mid-November.

-30-