Haiya…Covid
This post documents the impact and personalises my experience.Could be worth the future medical tracking. Surely beneficial.
The 2022 Covid Experience
In the lead up to it, I was perpetually feeling under the weather for sometime - largely due to unhealthy work environment triggering a chronic state of childhood allergic reactions.
And it twas a grave November 8th as I returned from work on a dreary Tuesday evening. My cold-Like symptoms rapidly deteriorated at work that afternoon. Nose turned on. Like a tap unfortunately.
Tuesday - return from work. Already knew I was going down and that it was viral. Bought 2 x redoxon packs, inhalers, 38.3 C. Left nose super stuffy
Wednesday - morning temp 38. Right nose super stuffy. (I continue to be amazed at the human body’s ability to keep one nostril open.
Post - fever, things were generally tiring, though I focused heavily on recovering and not being too active. In fact, I had caught a sinus infection one week after being covid. Though largely attributable to me not being too diligent in recovery. As I write this, full, perfectly asymptomatic recovery is still underway.
Some persistent symptoms include:
- Runny nose (2 weeks after negative)
- Mucus and a terribly stubbonrly congested sinus (persistent one month…and onwards). After some experimentation, I find that my childhood allergies and triggers are more acutely sensitive than before.
Reflective thoguhts:
There was something about the feeling of knowing and labelling one’s illness as Covid. It was a universal pass for sympathy. A unifying experience. Of high expectations of a known illness. Easily able for others to empathise, while having a globally backed narrative on its potential severity and danger (which diminished, in practice over time). Oddly comforting because you know exactly what it is.
A layperson’s thesis on COVID:
From a practical persepctive, I reason that Covid is everywhere. Its on me, on you, and all over the place with high human density.
But it’s uniqueness is how it’s given an opportunity to infect, multiply and shed. Just like any parasite. Its a virus waiting for immune system to drop, and exploit the body. So, the most impactful thing is to keep our immune systems robust and tough. (I’m reminded that Vit D, C and Zinc are key Vits to ensure good levels).
From a future perspective, to understand the trajectory of COVID (and possibly other pandemics in the future), I rather like a consistent mental model to approach it. Most of all, a thought around steady states and darwinian evolution.
I posit that the virus inherently wants propagation. If true, propagation and reproduction dictates higher transmissibility and thus lower fatality.
So I believe it will hold true in China (entering an immense wave of infections as of the time of writing), and hence even though there are concerns over new mutations, I don’t believe it will significantly endanger the world.
In reality, COVID has since left the realms of medical science, and instead is a topical narrative of cyclical domestic and geo-politics.
Anyway, mankind lives to survives another pandemic and life goes on….