When I made my visit to our local health centre for my annual flu and Covid jabs, I was asked/told to wear a mask. “Do I have to wear a mask?” I didn’t ask, because although I find mask-wearing a pain in the arse, I know there are health benefits to others of wearing them. Given that everyone in the line appeared to be older than me, I didn’t want to be the one to kill them all. To be fair, the Covid jab in particular had come a month or so late because I had already had Covid, again, in September. I am hoping that the combination of the vaccine and my antibodies will see me through another winter. A few weeks after my jab, I returned to my health centre for some tests – investigations was the word chosen, darkly, I felt, by my GP – for what appears to be long Covid and this time no one was wearing a mask. What had changed?
Perhaps my local health centre was following the example of Southmead Hospital where next to no one was wearing masks when I went for a series of scans at the beginning of October and on Friday just gone at Yate Minor Injury Unit where I had some X Rays, no one was wearing masks there, either. Given that the small waiting room was rammed with coughing and spluttering people, many of whom were hardly in the first flush of youth, it seemed odd to me.
To recap on previous blogs, I almost certainly caught Covid on a flight to Canada in early September, had all the usual symptoms and some have remained, mainly an irritating cough, occasional waves of weariness and some brain fog concrete mixer. Sorry, just had some brain fog. And these tests, scans, investigations, X rays are all to do with that because, quite frankly, I want to get better.
None of this is to suggest that I am currently at death’s door, at least I hope not. But I do have a permanent, underlying condition known as chronic asthma and respiratory conditions are not exactly what your average asthmatic wants to catch. And when I was finally testing negative for Covid, I was still coughing like a 40 a day Capstan Full Strength man. I don’t think I’m in imminent danger of shuffling off my mortal coil – although who really knows? – but if I was, I’d be scared shitless of catching Covid.
My persistent cough as led me to almost pass out on occasions, it’s been so extreme. It’s certainly easing now and it seems that I have not managed to shift my internal organs, but if my health was worse than it appears to be and I was weak and frail, it would not be a good thing to have. And that’s why I am more than a little concerned about the NNH policy on mask-wearing.
I appreciate that doctors know far better than I do about whether masks should be worn in a medical setting and I am guessing that they have had some input into mask-wearing policy, in which case, perhaps I am worrying for no good reason. Perhaps, the latest strain(s) of Covid have no effect on anyone, beyond an horrendous cough, a runny nose, exhaustion, aches and pains and symptoms that seem to go on for months, maybe longer.
Given the astonishing stories of incompetence and neglect by Boris Johnson’s shit show of a government during Covid, i just hope that guidance is being issued by snake oil salesman Rishi Sunak who, you may recall, bribed us with our own money with his “Eat Out To Help The Virus” initiative, killing thousands more people in the process.
My annoyingly long brush with the virus – and I am assuming it’s the virus that’s lingered longer than before – has convinced me that it’s best not to catch it, especially if you are in any way vulnerable. Or for that matter invulnerable.
