Yes I have got Omicron, this is Covid take 2.

Hi again guys, in case you haven't noticed from my last post, yes I have Covid again. I ended my last post by talking about how strict the Covid-rules are in Panama but ironically, it seems that I caught Covid there towards the very end of my stay there in Panama - let's look at the time line here to examine when I may have been infected whilst I was there. 

Sunday 29 May: I spent the day sightseeing in Panama, carefully observing the rules. 

Monday 30 May: I went to Albrook mall in the morning, had lunch there then the taxi picked me up to go to the airport at 4 pm. When I got to the airport, my flight was delayed till 7:20 pm. 

Tuesday 31 May: I landed in Amsterdam in the mid-afternoon for a transit, I was in Schipol airport for about three hours before my flight back to London, I got home in the evening around 8 pm. 

Thursday 2 June: I began to feel unwell, it was a bad headache, the first sign something was wrong. I also developed a cough and a runny nose but it wasn't severe. 

Friday 3 June: I met up with my friend Lauren despite having that headache, not thinking I was that ill.

Sunday 5 June: My hubby began to feel unwell as well with a cough and runny nose.  

Wednesday 9 June: All my symptoms cleared up and I no longer felt ill. Hubby still feeling quite rough.

Thursday 10 June: I found out that Lauren tested positive and so I decided to get hubby to take a test and sure enough, he tested positive for Covid. By this point, I'm totally back to normal.

Normally with Covid, there is an incubation period of at least 5 to 6 days between first infection and for the symptoms to show. This period could be as little as 2 to 3 days or even as long as 10 to 12 days in some cases, but typically 5 to 6 days is the average. So if you were to work backwards from Thursday, then the time of infection fell squarely in the period when I was in Panama City, diligently following all the strict Covid rules there like wearing a mask and maintaining social distancing. Despite the fact that I seem to be the person who infected both Lauren and my hubby, I tested negative which probably made sense: I had already recovered as I started this process a week before them. I was exhibiting symptoms that Friday when Lauren came over to my house and we actually spent ages just sitting around my living room table, drinking tea and catching up. She used to live in London some years back but moved up north, I had not seen her since the pandemic so we had a lot to talk about especially since we have a lot of mutual friends as well. Technically speaking, sure it is possible that Lauren could have caught it from someone else in England given that cases are on the rise here as well, but it does seem highly likely that I infected her. Quite frankly, I didn't even think it might have been Covid - I thought the exhaustion from the travel along with the stress from work recently had affected me, I hadn't been sleeping well (jet lag on top of all that) so I thought it was the combination of all of those factors which made me fall ill. I didn't actually feel that sick this time - it just felt like any other bout of cold or flu and I recovered relatively quickly as well. 

I had Covid back in January 2021 before I got vaccinated and there were a few differences between then and now: back then, I suffered from bouts of high fever as my body struggled to fight the virus, this time, I did get some bad headaches but I didn't get a fever at all. Another classic symptom of Covid is having your sense of taste altered, oh that was a weird experience when I couldn't enjoy my favourite food and drink - coffee tasted like battery acid and anything salty had a nasty metallic after taste, I was only able to eat sweet items like orange jelly and like a pregnant woman, it was what I craved and ate an insane amount of orange jelly in that period. There were also days when I couldn't sleep at night and slept all day, I'm not sure how that is a function of Covid but it rendered me unable to function for that period as I was too sleepy to do anything in the day having been up all night. But the bottom line is that after having had Covid before and being triple-vaxxed, my body is in a much better position to fight Omicron. In fact, if Lauren hadn't tested positive, I wouldn't have even thought about testing my hubby for Covid as I had already recovered by then. In the meantime, I chatted to Lauren and she too has made a full recovery (she is younger in her mid-20s, that's to be expected) and she is back at work now. There is actually no legal requirement for us to test if we're ill or self-isolate if we're Covid positive actually, those laws were scrapped earlier this year. All there is left are some guidelines about avoiding others if we're ill.

But what do I do in this case? I am expected in the office tomorrow morning for a meeting, my hubby is still unwell and clearly exhibiting symptoms - he still has a runny nose and a nasty cough. Technically, there's nothing to stop me from going to that meeting even if I do present an infection risk not so much from being a carrier myself but rather simply from being in the same household as someone who is sick with Covid at this very moment. In the past, I would have had to self-isolate but now, I don't as the risk I present to others is much lower, even if I do infect someone, they would probably experience a milder form of Covid compared to back at the beginning of the pandemic. But here's one thing I do want to clarify: someone has asked me, "are you sure you have Omicron? It is supposed to be a lot milder, but you still experienced some symptoms? Could this be a new variant that is stronger than Omicron?" The current outbreak in the UK is fueled by the BA.4 and BA.5 variant of the Omicron, rather than a brand new variant assigned to a different Greek letter - these new variants are even more infectious than the previous variants of Omicron which were in turn, far more infectious than the older variants in the early days of the pandemic. This explained how I could have infected Lauren simply by being in the same room as her even if there was no actual physical contact. But a milder version of Covid doesn't mean being completely asymptomatic, it simply means the risk of becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalization is much reduced - so that was clearly the case for me this time as I wasn't that ill and I recovered quickly. 

There are two trends with the way pandemic is evolving: firstly, it is becoming more and more infectious but at the same time, it is becoming milder and milder. The only people who are at risk now are those who have adamantly refused to get vaccinated. So if I go to the gym today and infect 'Tina', the woman at my gym who believes in all these conspiracy theories, then she has a far higher risk of becoming much more ill given that she hasn't been vaccinated. But at this stage, do you shut down society to protect people like her or do you treat it as a risk that we have to take personal responsibility for? Allow me to compare it to the case of alcohol: it is legal in the UK to purchase and consume alcohol, the government doesn't limit how much you drink but there are some rules regarding the sale of alcohol and where it can be served. So you cannot sell alcohol to minors and you need a license before you can sell alcohol in a restaurant or a shop. There are health risks related to the consumption of alcohol but we're trusted to evaluate how much risk we wish to take and monitor our own alcohol consumption - that has led to some people becoming alcoholics and drinking way too much for their own good but the government isn't prepared to ban alcohol because of those alcoholics. Likewise for people who do have underlying health conditions or are severely overweight and are much more vulnerable to Covid, the onus is therefore now on them to be extra careful and take measures to protect themselves when out in public; if they put themselves at too much risk then they have to pay the price and thus that's a choice they have to make for themselves. 

The thing is if these new Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants are so much more infectious, then this variant is going to simply wash over the population once again like previous waves - a lot of people are going to be infected very quickly. I actually didn't think I was a likely candidate for Omicron: I am fully vaccinated, I am in good health, I've had Covid before but all that meant was that when I got infected, I I only experienced relatively mild symptoms and then recovered fairly quickly. Given how we don't have any rules left regarding social distancing or mask wearing in the UK, I expect this latest wave to be the fastest one yet. The only issue is that we're no longer offering free Covid tests and people like me are using our limited stash of lateral flow tests that we still have at home. Even if you do test positive, the government is offering you nothing. No one knows how many people are already infected or how fast it is spreading at the moment and the government really doesn't care at all. Oh and I ran into Tina at the gym today, when I shared this story with a group (she was just standing there, I didn't want to exclude her), she actually claimed that I got Covid because I wore a mask in Panama and masks spread diseases; she then ranted about how it is horrible to have to wear a mask in hot weather and how unhygienic it becomes when the mask becomes moist with our sweat. Well obviously Tina isn't vaccinated so if the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants are spreading quickly, then people like Tina are going to get it and become quite sick.

So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Are you concerned about the Omicron variant sparking a new wave of Covid infections? Do you agree with the UK's government's approach which is to simply abolish all rules and allow it to spread as quickly as possible to get it over and done with or do you think that China's zero-Covid stance is better? Have you had Covid more than once? What was your experience like second time around? Are you concerned about Omicron? Do you know of anyone who has had it three times? Please leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.