Part 1: How We Got Covid 19

Here’s a link the audio of me talking through this transcript plus the rest of my story here.

So the first thing I’m going to talk about, and I guess this is the question that everybody starts with, is — how did we even get COVID-19 in the first place.

The truth is that we avoided getting COVID for almost a year and a half — COVID started in 2019, we managed to go through all of 2020 without getting COVID — despite going to two weddings during that time and even though we were fairly anti-social, we did have a few outings and we definitely had some interactions with people. BUT we managed to not get COVID during that time, so how did we suddenly get COVID now when we had avoided it before.

So that is definitely something that we asked ourselves. And I wanted to just address that and get it out of the way before I start telling you the rest of my story. So based off of what we had been doing, during the time that we diagnosed ourselves, and then the doctor diagnosed us with COVID, we basically narrowed this down to three possibilities of where we could have gotten COVID from.

So number one was the gym, my husband goes to work out every single day, or was going to work out every single day at our neighbourhood gym. And so even though our gym is amazing, and I’m going to talk about why we thought the gym was not a possibility in a second, that was definitely one big question mark in terms of where we could have gotten COVID from. The second option is my husband works out with a friend of his who was going to his job, and he was going out every day and meeting people and doing the things that he had to do. It wasn’t a work from home job and so that was a second possibility. And then the third possibility is that my husband’s brother in law came to visit us from another city in India. And he had to come because of some work and he stayed with us for a couple of days.

Now the first thing that I want to say is that even though this question is going to come up, when you think about where you could have gotten COVID from, the most important thing to keep in mind is narrowing it down is not about finding someone to put blame on because the way that COVID is going right now and the way that it’s spreading and the way that it spreads in areas and from person to person blame is completely unhelpful. Because chances are you’re going to get COVID from somebody and so it makes absolutely no sense to find somebody to blame and to focus your energy on that conversation.

The only reason that it is helpful to narrow down your possibilities is because you want to know who may have been that patient zero. And you also want to backtrack and identify who you’ve come into contact with, since you may have met that person or done that activity, so that you can warn other people to be mindful of their symptoms and to check in with themselves so that they are aware that they possibly could also have caught COVID from you. So that’s the only reason that I think you might want to narrow down where you would have gotten COVID from.

Also, if you are the person who brought COVID into your house, if you are the patient zero in your family, again, blame is not helpful, it’s not going to help you get well faster, it’s not going to help you have your family get well faster. So blame is definitely an absolutely useless emotion in COVID right now.

So just know that with the spread rate of COVID, especially the way that it’s been going in India, getting COVID-19 is inevitable unless you literally live in a sealed box and you do not allow any outside influences coming your way, chances are you will get COVID. And so instead of blaming, I would say that a more helpful way of looking at it is to take personal responsibility for your own carelessness.

And I will say that in our case, we were definitely careless when it came to the first possibility, which is the gym, we took for granted that we work out in a fairly expensive state of the art gym, where we know for a fact that people clean the machines after every single use, however, given the way that the current wave of COVID is spreading, chances are that it is airborne or it just is more viral.

And so even though every machine is sanitised after use, my husband chooses or chose to go to the gym at a time which is very popular with other weight lifters and he also lifts weights and so even though the gym is state of the art, it’s sanitised after each use, it’s sanitised for four hours every day. So they close the gym from 12 to 4 and they sanitise the gym and then they sanitise it when they close down for the evening.

So despite knowing all of those things, he still chose to, A- go to the gym, B- workout without a mask, and C- chose to work out at a time that suited him and was also suitable for a lot of people. And so there was always other people in the gym, contrasted when I was actually going to the gym, I would choose to go at 3:45 and ensured that I was always the first person to use any machine in the gym, there would be a handful of people about five to six people throughout both sections of the gym, cardio and weightlifting. And so I was definitely choosing a more safe time, although just choosing to go to the gym itself is a decision that you are making.

So that is something that we take complete responsibility for, that is going to the gym, choosing to go at a time that was not the least crowded and then choosing to work out without a mask, because it’s really hard to get in a great workout when you’re wearing a mask. And my husband definitely sweats a lot and he had issues wearing a mask. And so he chose not to wear a mask. And so all of these things contribute to getting COVID and to being susceptible to get COVID. So you have to take personal responsibility for the fact that you allowed yourself to be in a position where COVID was a possibility. So that’s the difference between blaming somebody else and looking at yourself and saying, what did I do that may have contributed to this situation.

Another thing that my husband and his friend did, the same friend who has a job and who was going outside, they decided to work out together. So they were both not wearing masks, even though, you know, they’re guys, they’re not going to be like hugging and shaking hands and coming into close contact with each other. They were going to the gym in their own cars, even though they used to typically pick each other up along the way. But in the last few weeks, they were going to the gym in their separate cars. But they were still, in essence working out together and hanging out together. And so I doubt that they were maintaining six feet of distance and having conversation in the gym. So choosing again, to go to the gym with a workout buddy was a choice that they both made. And so they have to take responsibility for that choice.

The third possibility that we had was my brother in law coming into town. And I think this is a responsibility that all of us in my house share. I live with my husband and his parents. So there’s four of us who live in this house. And my brother in law came in from out of town, he spent a night with us. And then he went to his hometown, which is a couple of 100 kilometres away. So his parents or his family had a couple of meetings. And so I’m sure he met at least 10 to 20 people during that time and then came back and spent two nights with us before flying out.

Now it is our responsibility that we didn’t quarantine him. And so we made an effort on the first night when he came in and flew in to sit away from him while he was eating and sort of maintain distance. But that kind of went out of the window for the next couple of days that he was with us. My husband and my mother in law and he even went to a drive thru restaurant and had a meal together. They were in the car, they ate and then they came back. Luckily, I had a migraine that day and so I stayed home. And because I was staying home, my father in law decided to stay home, just so that I wasn’t all alone.

And maybe that is the space in which my husband gave COVID to my mother in law, or my brother in law gave it to us or we gave it to him. Either way, I’m really grateful that my father in law and I were not exposed during that time, especially my father in law, because he’s definitely the most sensitive out of the four of us. So, again, we knew that my brother in law was coming into town, we knew that he was coming to town with the purpose of meeting people who were busy, active people who themselves would have been meeting hundreds of people each week. But we chose to go with the mindset that family cannot give you COVID, family is safe, we can’t give him COVID, he can’t give us COVID because family is safe and that is definitely something that is not a helpful mindset at this time.

Just know that anybody who is not part of your daily living circumstances is somebody who can be a carrier of COVID no matter how much you love them and how close they are in your family. It doesn’t matter. It is definitely a possibility that you can get COVID through them. So it was really hard for us to keep distance and quarantine from him. Because we haven’t seen him for almost a year and a half, we definitely haven’t seen him since COVID started. And so when you haven’t seen family for a really long time, it’s very hard to quarantine them and keep them part. But I believe that is something that we should have done. And we should have been a little stricter around our quarantine protocols when it came to having visitors into our house. So that is something that I think the four of us have to take complete personal responsibility for.

So basically, the moral of this first section is to say that when it comes to COVID, you have to take complete responsibility for your actions. And a really great way to think about your COVID possibilities or probabilities is to really think through the risks of all your activities. When you’re going to the grocery store, if you’re working out in the gym, if you’re meeting somebody for coffee, even if you’re meeting someone for coffee and you’re walking together or you’re going through a drive thru together, you really want to assess the risk of all those activities. And think about if you did get COVID from this activity, is it going to be worth it? Are you willing to take that risk? Is that okay with you? And so just count the cost and know that if you live with other people, then chances are you’re going to pass it on to others.

So in our case, my husband was the first person to show symptoms. So I’m guessing that he was definitely our patient zero. Now between him and my brother in law, they basically had symptoms around the same time, so I can’t say which one got it first. But when it came to our household, it was my husband and then it went to me and then it went to my mother in law. So just definitely know when you’re assessing risk and you are accounting the cost, don’t just count the cost to yourself. Also count the cost to the people that you are coming into contact with. So that really is the story of how we got COVID and also why I think it is not helpful to play the blame game when it comes to COVID. And why taking personal responsibility is the only way to go.

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