Practical Magic: COVID Is Here to Stay — So What Does It Mean to Keep Each Other Safe?

The first time I got COVID, sometime in May of 2020, it was practically inevitable. The virus had taken the world by storm that winter and spring. How it spread was still emerging science, leading to unprecedented global shutdowns in an attempt to curtail the devastating quantity of fatalities.

Two and a half years later, on October 2, 2022, I got COVID again, and a few days later I had a positive rapid test to prove it. Unlike my experience in 2020, I know exactly how I got it and from whom. And this time, it was completely avoidable, even as the U.S. and countless other countries around the world threw caution to the wind and eliminated pretty much all COVID safety measures in the name of preserving global and national economies.

From a political and public health standpoint, things were certainly going in the wrong direction, I felt. At the end of the day, that’s also not how I got COVID: it wasn’t at work, it wasn’t on the train, it wasn’t at the store or the museum or the theater.

I got COVID visiting a friend at their apartment because they were in denial about their own mild symptoms after attending a big concert, misread their rapid test results, and did not tell me about any of this uncertainty until I was already inside their apartment, after having traveled over an hour to get there.

Most of the media explainers about how to mitigate COVID risk would say this was probably ok. I was 33 at the time, healthy, not immunocompromised, and fully vaccinated with one booster. By all accounts, it should’ve been a mild case that set me back a week or two, at most, before I was up and kicking again.

The first time I got COVID, I had extreme fatigue and a low-grade fever that lasted through July. I basically worked half weeks for two months, and on the days I did work I was extremely sluggish and my head felt like it was on fire. Some nights, I’d hear phantom Bollywood music and wonder who in my building could possibly be blasting that specific genre at 2 am. And then, after plenty of rest, one day, it just all stopped, and I was able to resume my life. I ended that summer going on long walks in my neighborhood or down to Liberty State Park nearly every day.

The second time I assumed that since I was fully vaccinated, I wouldn’t get the mystery not-quite-long COVID symptoms again. But of course, nothing is guaranteed.

You can be in your early thirties, healthy, not immunocompromised, fully vaccinated and boosted, get COVID and four months later, still struggle to get out of bed some weeks, even after sleeping ten hours a night. Still find basic interactions to be so mentally exhausting your head rings for hours afterwards. Still fall asleep or wake up hearing phantom music and wonder if it’s your neighbor’s record player through the wall or your confused brain forming patterns out of the ambient sounds or both. Still struggle with memory and cognition so often that you seriously start to wonder how much this has heightened your risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s or related diseases in the future, despite having no family history of any of them. Still have symptoms so poorly understood that even after seeing three different doctors and two different specialists the best medical advice you can get is, “Well, it sounds like you get better with rest. So just keep resting,” or, alternatively, to take medications off-label that might fuck up your sleep even more. Still be so worn out and tired that you seriously debate quitting the job you really wanted and finally got after years of trying, and the only thing really keeping you from letting it go is the fact that you wouldn’t have the health insurance you need for the surgery you were supposed to have in December but had to postpone indefinitely.

There are large, systemic failures at the global level that have led to the devastation we continue to bear witness to more than three years after the coronavirus SARS-CoV2 was identified as spreading rapidly among humans. Frustrating — and, frankly, soul-crushing — as that reality is, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it, other than find our hope and joy in the small places we can.

But what we can do, is be a little more thoughtful about how we interact with others during these enduringly uncertain times. I’m not here to tell you that you can’t see other people or to wear masks endlessly. As angry as I can still be with the friend who gave me COVID when my symptoms are at their worst, I also recognize the faults of my own decision-making in that moment, largely clouded by the fact that I live by myself and was desperate for intimate, in-person connections nearly three years after we’ve all had to make our lives much, much smaller.

The Basics: Vaccinate, Test, Mask

The best way to protect yourself and others from COVID is to get vaccinated, plain and simple, and to be on top of your booster shots. Now, not everyone can get vaccinated for a number of legitimate reasons ranging from access to ongoing medical issues. This is all the more reason for the rest of us to keep our own vaccinations up to date because, more than protecting ourselves, this is about protecting others.

The same applies to testing and masking. And look, I know that tests, especially, can be expensive, are not consistently covered by health insurance, and in the U.S. at least the days of publicly available tests, vaccines, and treatments are quickly coming to an end. But honestly, if you’re planning on going to a large event (especially if it is indoors) or traveling, then add the price of several days’ worth of masks, rapid tests, and potentially a PCR to your costs. I know that’s a shitty calculation to make and in a time of rampant inflation it might make life feel even more inaccessible, especially if you are already uninsured or under-insured.

But the alternative is that you’re in a space with a large number of people, contract COVID without realizing it (maybe you’re asymptomatic), don’t test before and afterwards, don’t mask, give it to someone else, and that person may experience a particularly bad case of it or get long COVID. In other words, by not testing before attending a crowded event or after potentially exposing yourself and by not masking, you’re literally paying the price in someone else’s health.

Test Effectively and Accurately Use the Results

There seems to be a certain amount of confusion and uncertainty around the rapid tests. After speaking with two close friends, both trained in epidemiology, here are few facts to keep in mind.

First, if your rapid test result is really faintly positive, that doesn’t mean you’re less symptomatic or that your result is a false positive. The testing kits state this quite clearly, that a faint positive test is a positive test, plain and simple. There is no debate there.

Second, it can take a few days to actually turn up a positive test. So if you know you’ve been exposed or you think it’s possible (because you were in a poorly ventilated indoor space, for instance), and especially if you’re starting to experience symptoms of fever or fatigue, keep testing with a rapid kit and possibly even seek out a PCR. If you’re really not sure whether you have COVID or not, talk to a healthcare provider before assuming that you don’t.

Third, for all intents and purposes, unless you are or have spoken with a trained health care provider, operate under the assumption that there is no such thing as a “false positive” test result. There are false negatives, yes, but a positive test is a positive test, and you need to act accordingly.

Plan to Cancel

At the height of the shutdowns, I was video chatting with a friend who made an incredibly astute observation, that to be able to plan for the future is a privilege, and the COVID-19 pandemic has taken that privilege away from all of us. Nearly three years after that conversation, I still think about it, and I think about who continues to see the world through that lens and who doesn’t.

The truth is, with COVID a firmly accepted part of our lives, my friend’s words are no less true now than they were in 2020. And especially as I’ve had to live with my own long COVID, I’ve had to grapple with that reality again and again, as I repeatedly made plans that I had to later cancel and then, eventually, just stopped making plans.

If we really want to protect ourselves and, more importantly, protect each other we need to make plans with the understanding that we may have to cancel them. We might lose a lot of money. We might have to harbor disappointment and sorrow and the pain of not being able to pursue something we had hoped for. We might have to miss life events or an opportunity to connect with someone who could change our life.

Because if you test before a flight or a trip or a concert or pretty much anything that exposes other people to you and your result is positive, you should cancel. If you were in an indoor space — especially if it was poorly ventilated and you were unmasked — and you start experiencing even mild symptoms, but your test result is still coming back negative, you should also plan to cancel. If you’ve been planning for something special for months and then there’s a COVID surge right when you’re about to see those plans through, you should also really seriously think about canceling or, at the very least, take even more precautions than you would otherwise.

You almost certainly won’t get your flight or your booking refunded. It will likely end up meaning missing a wedding or a funeral or a birth or some other milestone that means the world to you. But as I said earlier, to refuse to do so, to think about your financial or personal loss first, is to literally pay the price in someone else’s life and livelihood. And believe me, whatever it is you didn’t cancel, that other person will end up paying for it tenfold, probably without you ever even knowing it. A really cruel irony, isn’t it?

Quarantine and Mask

The most basic way to “stop the spread” is to not allow spread to happen in the first place. So if you know that you have COVID, isolate for the recommended number of days from the onset of your symptoms.

Again, when I think back to that rainy Sunday afternoon in October, after which my life would never be the same again, I remember thinking, It’ll probably be fine, and I really want to see this person, I really want to explore whatever possibility might be here between us. I’ve been so lonely and so isolated for so long, after all. It’s only in retrospect that I realized that my pursuit of short-term gratification (really, we’re talking about a few hours that afternoon) came at a long-term price. I can’t even tell you how many days since I’ve spent alone, lonely, and isolated.

I do want to acknowledge that many employers have eliminated paid (or unpaid…) sick time for quarantine and isolation, if they ever even offered it, and that most people don’t have the option to work remotely, like I do. And so in that situation, where you know you likely have or were exposed to COVID but you must go to work or risk losing your job — first of all, I’m really sorry, for all of us, that this is your reality. And second, be sure to wear a proper mask and increase ventilation in your workspace to the extent possible, even if this means opening a window in inclement weather.

Be Honest with Others

Over the last few months, I’ve tried to come to terms with the fact that my luck ran out, as far as getting COVID a second time goes. I know that there’s nothing constructive from playing the blame game, but in my long months of off and on brain fog and endless exhaustion since then, I can’t let go of the fact that my friend waited until I was inside their apartment to tell me about their positive test. And it’s on me for not thinking much of it at the time, for assuming that I was likely going to be ok even if I got COVID again.

But it’s also an unfair situation to be placed in, by a friend, to have to decide on the spot whether you’re going to stay or go after you’ve traveled over an hour to get to their place and they’ve spent over an hour cooking for you. And I know that my friend didn’t mean harm. Like the countless articles I’ve read on The Atlantic, NPR, and Vox — to name a few — my friend probably assumed that the risk was low for both of us, and in fairness that was my assumption as well.

The truth is, with COVID, you just can’t know. You really just can’t know what your risk will be. That’s not to undermine the science, but as of now there’s no science that can predict long COVID risk, and I really would not wish this on anyone.

So communicate and be honest with others. Don’t make assumptions about their health or their risk tolerance. If you’ve tested and you have a faint positive result or you’re experiencing mild symptoms or anything else, let the people you made plans with know beforehand so they can have the proper space to make their own decisions, weigh their own risks. And please, if a friend asks you to test before you get together or to mask through a gathering, take it with grace and do what they ask of you.

Bonus: Things Not to Say to the Person in Your Life Struggling with Long COVID

As a final closing, I want to leave you with some guidance for approaching people with long COVID. Ultimately, this boils down to the same advice for offering someone support through pretty much any difficult situation.

Meaningful compassion is always welcome, but please refrain from the following:

• “My cousin’s friend’s brother’s aunt has long COVID, and she found this vitamin supplement helpful.”
• “Have you tried keto?”
• “Hope you get better soon!” (As my sister put it, you would not tell a cancer patient, “Hope you get better soon,” or constantly ask how they are feeling. Long COVID may not be a terminal illness, exactly, but there is no definitive cure for it, either.)
• And for the love of what little joy exists in the world, please don’t tell them to “manifest good health.”

Instead, ask the person about what they need. Reach out just to let them know that you care and you’re thinking of them. Meet them where they are at in terms of how they can connect, whether that’s over the phone, video or in-person, masked or outdoors, in a place they feel up to going to or a place that they can easily access without too much exertion on their part. And show real understanding and kindness when, inevitably, they find they have to cancel because they’re having a bad day of their symptoms.

Practical Magic is a column that curates how-to articles for living your best queer life, edited by Meg Jones Wall.