“Voodoo,” [Cootie] whispered. “Some peoples saying Henrietta’s sickness and them cells was man or woman-made, others say sit was doctor-made”—Rebecca Skloot

It started off one morning as a minor itch in my throat that was followed by what felt like a minor reactive cough, no biggie! That evening though—as my wife and I were walking downtown—my legs felt heavy, as if I were walking in molasses! “Perhaps I’m just overtired from the trip overseas” I thought to myself. It was not until the following morning that things really started going south. I woke up with a throbbing headache and generalized malaise. “This is it, you finally got me you cheeky bastard!” I thought to myself. Three years of washing my hands like an OCD person, gowning up multiple times a day to see patients, donning those suffocating N95 masks, wearing surgical masks, and goggles for hours on end, multiple vaccines, and their side effects, and yet there I was.

That morning my partner was about to go visit her elderly parents, when I offered testing myself before leaving. Most of our test kits were expired, except one! I opened the kit and carefully placed it on a desk, making sure I only touched the edges. I placed the reagent in one of two perforations on the card, got the swab, and started the process of turning the swab in one nostril 5 times clockwise and 5 times counter clockwise. I repeated the process in the other nostril. I introduced the swab in the lower of two orifices in the card, and turned it 3 times, closed the card, and set my watch timer for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes I opened the card and voila! two red bars appeared on the strip, I had tested positive for COVID-19. This came as no surprise to me or my partner. I told her I was sorry! She would remain asymptomatic for three more days before testing positive herself. I must have gotten it in one of the airports or planes on my way back from a trip the week before. It really did not matter les jeux sont faits!

On the other hand, had I been infected in 2020 before the advent of the mRNA vaccines or Paxlovid, I could have been another statistic, one of 921,000 dead in the US according to the CDC. I called my Chief to switch my patients from in-person to virtual for the following week and spent the rest of the day in bed. By night fall I was warm and achy. I called a colleague in the ER, and asked his thoughts on Paxlovid—an FDA approved antiviral medication against SARS CoV2. “Unless you are over 65 and are not healthy, I would pass on it, he said.” I was on the fence about starting the antiviral in any case, who wants rebound COVID! I went upstairs locked myself in a room and got back to reading “La Peste” by Albert Camus.