I guess it was inevitable that after “getting over” my first Covid infection I’d be expected to stop being so… so… careful? As in, I was asked on Twitter why I would still be doing weekly antigen tests (what’s the point unless you do them every day??) and it has been assumed that I am now “safe from Covid” until I can get my second booster vaccine, now pushed forward 4-5 months (flatmate Peter got his today). So no more need to “live in fear” as I have been accused of doing in the past.

Truth is that the main thing that has changed for me is that I got fucking Covid after being as careful as possible without totally shutting down my life. But everything else remains the same, except maybe a bit worse, and possibly a lot worse. Time will tell.

You see, what happens when you get Covid is that there is an initial acute phase, mostly respiratory, which these days has been largely mitigated by vaccines, so that hospitalisations and deaths are lower than in pre-vaccine times. Lowered. Not eliminated. People continue to die from Covid every day and many who don’t die continue to suffer from Long Covid. But we don’t hear about that any more because governments the world over stopped testing and publishing information related to Covid hoping that this would make us feel like Covid has disappeared. That, along with the big lie that Covid is now “just like a bad cold or the flu” and continued use of phrases such as “mild Covid” have done irreparable damage.

Covid is not “like the flu”, and there is no such thing as “mild Covid”. Since early 2020 much has been published about this novel coronavirus affecting both the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, as is actually quite common with many viruses. Blood clots, strokes, heart attacks were being reported after people had “gotten over” Covid, but we didn’t hear a lot about that. Instead it was spun by anti-vaxxers that it was actually the vaccines causing blood clots, etc. Covid became political very early on in the pandemic.

A pandemic that is still not over.

How this affects me personally in that I am now feeling a bit nervous about the next few weeks coming up since I’ve “recovered”. Because getting over the acute phase is just the first stage and as I’ve suffered from POTS since I was 25 and have some other health issues, like compromised immune stuff from previous chemo, yeah I’m concerned. No, it won’t stop me living my life, but I will continue to live it as I’ve been doing since March 2020. Taking sensible precautions.

For me nothing has changed because – guess what?? – nothing HAS changed. Also guess what? It hasn’t changed for you either, no matter how much you wish it to be so. Covid is not over.