Last September, our once in a lifetime trip to Canada was – how shall I put this? – affected by Covid. Several days after arriving in the capital (or should that be Capital?) Ottawa, my partner and I developed what appeared to be stinking colds, accompanied by a hacking cough and exhaustion, and, at least in my case, brain fog and the infamous 100 day cough, which lingered into 2024. We still did the things we wanted to do, although at times I did feel slightly guilty about it, not least flying back to the UK, quite possibly still infected. It was obvious what caused our bout of Covid: sitting in an aircraft for the best part of seven hours, breathing recycled air, wasn’t it? In June 2024, it’s happened again.
Three days after flying back from the tiny island of Porto Santo, my partner started sneezing and coughing and she’s knackered. Still possessing a shed load of (free) test kits from the dim and distant days of Covid – The Movie, she tested positive. I, currently with no symptoms, tested, too. Result: Positive 1 Negative 1. Great.
Incredibly, it’s been over four years since Boris Johnson locked us all down when the first Covid wave arrived and we’re now at the stage where we’re supposed to just get on with our lives. Test kits are no longer freely available and quite frankly who wants to pay for a Covid test when the government’s advice is, effectively, to suck it up and get on with life? The only reason we bothered to test because we still have kits. If we didn’t, would we just assume we just had bad colds and go around infecting everyone else? Having kits makes the decision easier.
We do have family members who might be considered to be vulnerable and knowing just how shit Covid was last time, the last thing I would want to do would be to infect them. So, knowing what we know, my partner is taking precautions to not spread the virus to those who might die as a result, or at least be quite ill. Maybe we should just avoid flying because of the risk of catching the virus? Apparently not.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) says that actually the aircraft environment is far safer than even your average office. HEPA-filtered air is 99.993% successful at bacteria/virus removal. How unlucky have we been, then, to catch the virus in an environment in which Covid is almost 100% eliminated? Hmm. IATA is a trade association of the world’s airlines. They’re hardly going to describe their aircraft as death traps, are they? And anyway, I can’t know for sure we caught Covid on the plane. (The TUI flight last week provided the smallest amount of leg space I have ever come across in half a century of flying, by the way.)
As my partner slumbers gently on this Sunday morning, I am sitting here just waiting for the sneezing, coughing, brain fog and exhaustion to overwhelm me, again. Every tickle, every little splutter, I am thinking, is this it?
I know that many of you find 2024’s version of the virus more of a bloody nuisance than anything else, but last year I ended at Southmead Hospital having chest X Rays when the medics wondered if my endless cough and worsening asthma might be down to something else. In the end, it was what they described as “likely long Covid”, meaning they don’t yet know enough about long Covid and its long term effects, apart from the fact it is a thing. I really don’t want that again and I don’t want to give it to you, if you are one of the people who might be in serious health bother if you caught it.
More than anything, I’m just a bit pissed off that Covid is still here, that my partner has it and quite possibly I shall have it soon. My levels of self-pity are elevated once more. Woe is me.
