guess who got the couf again?!

The timeline, near as I can figure, was this:

Friday, March 8: wake up, do stairs, see "Dune 2." Sore-throat symptoms in the evening.
Saturday, March 9: full-blown flu symptoms—sore throat, fever, stuffy/runny nose, etc.
Sunday, March 10: same level of suck.
Monday, March 11: feeling much better, but still symptomatic. Go to work.
Tuesday, March 12: sick day. Not feeling awful, but resting anyway.
Wednesday, March 13: Feeling even better, but a COVID test shows me as positive.

COVID-positive results. If quizzes make you quizzical, then tests make you...

This is disturbing because, when I first got COVID, I tested at the beginning of the five-day self-isolation period (positive), then again on the morning of the sixth day (negative). This time around, I became aware of my symptoms on Friday, so if Friday is Day 1, then today is Day 6, and based on last time, I ought to be better now, and testing negative. Upshot: this is a longer, lighter, gentler COVID than last time: I got knocked on my ass over the weekend, but I felt good enough to go to work on Monday (where I must've been shedding the virus like a champ). The boss heard my voice, though, and suggested I knock off early. On Tuesday, still symptomatic, I took it upon myself to have a sick day, and as I thought the matter through, I decided I'd give myself a COVID self-test, which turned out positive. So: no work for Kevin today. I'll be staying home.

I'd originally thought this wasn't COVID because the symptoms weren't nearly as bad as last time. Guess the symptoms fooled me. In pondering how I got the couf again, I've tentatively concluded that when I went to see "Dune," I used the subway—Lines 3 and 8, transferring at Garak Market Station—to go to and from Jamshil Station. The subway was crowded both ways, and at the best of times, a stuffed Korean subway is a petri dish, so I'm thinking I got the virus that way. Taking those subway rides was also a big departure from my normal weekday routine, taking me deep into the precincts of Virus City.

In the US, they've made a big deal about dropping the self-isolation protocol and treating COVID as if it were the flu—something the American right had been saying to do for years, but which the leftie media mockingly dismissed and rejected in sanctimonious article after article. That said, I'm self-isolating for today; I'll test myself again tomorrow, and if I'm negative, I'll head in to work.

The biggest disappointment in all this (aside from once again losing my sense of taste) has been natural immunity. Did it or didn't it help? I can only theorize that it helped a little, hence the alleviated symptoms, but it didn't help nearly as much as I'd thought it would.

All my friends, coworkers, and acquaintances got the shot and still got COVID. Some have, since then, gotten infected a second and even a third time. So injections don't seem to help, and natural immunity isn't quite the aegis that it had been made out to be. The moral of the story seems to be that life comes with no guarantees.

I'm sure I'll be better by the end of this week. Not my senses of smell and taste, though. If it's anything like last time, we'll be well into spring by the time I can enjoy food again.

Final note: I haven't done the stairs at all this week, and I'm just taking it easy for now. Since I now know this is thanks to COVID, I understand why I've been so out of breath on any set of stairs these past few days. COVID is, first and foremost, a respiratory infection. I'll restart the stairs next week, dialing back my workout and rebuilding myself until I'm finally back at 1.25 staircases... then onward to 1.5!