The Retirement Newsletter: It got me! Catching COVID-19
##Issue Number: -79 — Two years of dodging and then WHAM!
Welcome
Welcome to issue number -79 — the COVID-19 issue.
After two years of dodging the virus, it finally caught up with me last week.
I have written about COVID-19 many times before, see:
Issue -81: I’m worried about my finances — where I talked about the death of a close family friend due to COVID-19
Issue -82: The great academic lie — where I described how COVID-19 had changed my job
Issue -84: YouTube and Photos — hobby or side-hustle? — how COVID-19 had helped develop my interest in making videos
Issue -102: Planning what to do when I am retired — how because of COVID-19, I now keep a daily journal
Issue -103: Do I need to practice at being retired? — how COVID-19 had changed my retirement plans
COVID-19 has featured in a lot of my Newsletters, and a key one was:
And I am so glad I did — I had all three jabs.
My COVID-19 story
I have spent the last two years dodging COVID-19.
I thought I had become pretty good at avoiding potential danger spots such as unventilated rooms or large gatherings.
I always had a mask to hand — usually an FFP3 or N95 type.
Every coat pocket seemed to have a hand gel in it.
I was avoiding public transport.
And it got me.
How?
How did it get me?
Well, last week, I attended a major outdoor event. There were a lot of people there, and it was breezy. So, I thought I was safe. That was not the case.
In the evenings, I would pop into a pub for a meal. I always took the table next to an open window or close to a door that was being used.
I limited my contact time.
But, it got me.
I am not sure how I caught COVID-19, but I suspect it was from when I popped by a friend’s house to say hi and didn’t get enough draft from an open patio door. He came down with COVID-19 48 hours later.
How did it start?
I woke up one morning after an evening out at the event with a slight cold, a touch of hay fever and a headache.
I took the pills — one for the hay fever and two for the headache.
But as the day went on, things got worse. The hay fever didn’t stop, and the headache got worse.
In the evening, I took a COVID-19 test. Negative. But, when I looked at it an hour later, there was a very faint band. Positive?
A test the following day was positive, with the band appearing in only a few minutes. The positive band appeared before the control band. It was that quick.
I am patient zero for my group
Now the guilt.
A few days after I turned positive, so did one of my friends with whom I had been out. And two days after him, another friend went positive. It looks like I gave it to both of them.
Since then, they have passed the virus on to at least three other people.
How’s it been?
Not too bad.
I have not had a temperature. I have not had the nasty cough. What I have experienced I would describe as a cross between a heavy summer cold with a touch of hay fever, a sprinkling of asthma and a dash of a hangover.
I have felt tired. I have had a headache. And I have had an exceptionally blocked/runny nose.
What I have experienced hasn’t been as bad as what many people have been through. And I put my lack of symptoms down to being fully vaccinated. I do not doubt that if this had happened two years ago, it would have been a different story.
What did I learn?
The new variants of the virus are very easy to catch.
I was surprised I caught the virus, as I thought I was careful. And I am surprised at how easily I passed it on to my friends.
Having looked at the literature for the most recent variants (BA2.75, BA4 and BA5), two key points seem to be emerging. First, the new variants appear much more infectious; two, people are more easily re-infected with the new variants. Some data suggests you can be re-infected in as little as 4 to 6 weeks. The immune response fails to detect new infections. This is not good.
Yet, it is not all bad. The antibodies in our blood due to infection or vaccination may fade, but the immune system has been primed. There is a second line of defence — the T cells.
I am not an immunologist; I am a biochemist (PhD). And here is a biochemist’s explanation of what is happening.
You can view the antibody response as a security wall around our body. The antibodies detect the virus early and prevent the infection from starting. As the antibody levels in our blood drop, we lose this defence, which comes from the B cells of our immune system. But, we have the T cells. These cells remember the prior infection, and when they see the virus, they swing into action. You can view the T cells as ‘security guards’ in the body. The gate-crashing virus may have gained entry, but the security guard T cells are at hand to deal with it.
What am I worried about?
As the pandemic has progressed (and we are still in it), I have become less worried about catching COVID-19 as we have the vaccines that offer protection and improved hospital treatment. But two things still worry me — the long-term impact of COVID-19 on general health and new variants.
Long-term impact
Some scientific studies have looked at the long-term impact of COVID-19. Here I am not talking about long-COVID, but the long-term damage the infection can do to our body.
Several studies have shown that COVID-19 can cause an increased risk of heart complications and diabetes for up to a year after infection, plus other issues. One study showed that flu can also cause such increased risks. But what worries me are the data that suggests that COVID-19 can cause changes to the morphology of the brain. The long-term impact of these changes are unknown, and it is not known if the changes can be reversed. Could this lead to an increased risk of dementia in later life?
There is also the question of repeat infections. Are the changes and the increased risk of illness from COVID-19 infections a one-off, or are they accumulative? Some evidence suggests repeated infections could worsen and make people more seriously ill. Again, it is early days with that research, and more work needs to be done. As to an accumulative impact, it is another unknown.
New variants
The possible appearance of new variants is a significant worry, and I wrote about this in Issue -115: Looking at why you should get a COVID-19 jab, where I wrote about playing dice.
Say you are playing a game of dice and must roll a six. Is it easier to use one die to get the six or roll hundreds of dice to get the six?
Playing the dice game is similar to what is happening with the virus and new variants. The more infected people there are, the greater the likelihood that a new variant will emerge. And the new variant could be a lot worse than the current version. Not good.
What’s next?
In the UK, they have announced flu and COVID-19 jabs in the autumn for the over 50s. I will be at the front of that queue.
I will also continue to wear my FFP3 (N95) mask and be even more careful when out and about. Being more cautious might mean I get some funny looks or questions (as I did at the barbers the other week). Still, I don’t want COVID-19 again until we understand the implications of multiple infections from the virus.
Stay safe!
Useful links
Useful COVD-19 links:
UK NHS COVID-19 website — lots of links to information on COVID-19
CDC COVID-19 website — lots of links to information on COVID-19
Next week
Next week, in issue -78, I will reflect on the fact that I have 18 months left until I retire.
Thanks
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Until next time,
Nick
PS, If you have something you would like to contribute to the newsletter — a story, advice, anything — please get in touch.