COVID Posts, I
22 Aug 2020
Seemingly on cue, as soon as I started writing weekly posts I ended up in the final sprint of my summer research project. That took away most of the time for writing I had each week, so I neglected to update the blog until today.
Which may not be such a bad thing, seeing as I have much more of interest going on now. On Thursday of this past week, I got tested for COVID-19 by my university. On Friday of this past week, I got a call from my university letting me know I tested positive, which really put a damper on my plans to start running more often which totally would have come to fruition otherwise.
Jokes aside, it was suggested that I try keeping a journal about my isolation experience. While my case came out of nowhere and is entirely asymptomatic so far, at a minimum I can talk your ear off about podcasts and Netflix.
Summary So Far
I woke up earlier than normal on Thursday to walk to the testing site before it got too crowded. The line was still about half an hour long, but it went by uneventfully. When I got back to my apartment I just went about my day as normal, finishing off the coffee cake I had made the week before and playing some video games in my last few days before classes start back up.
I got the call from my university’s Health Services department the next day, maybe ~26 hours after being tested. It came as a total surprise – I’ve only been around maybe three people for any extended time in the past two weeks, and have only gone out for the occasional Target run. As mentioned above, I feel totally fine. Regardless, the positive test means spending at minimum 10 days isolated from everyone else.
I generally think my university is handling the situation well. There have been some hiccups – waiting till two weeks before class began to announce that half of the undergrads can’t live on campus was a bit of a stinker. However, the testing procedure and the choices about how to deliver classes have generally been sensible from a (more or less) layman’s point of view. I wonder how the experience has been from the faculty’s side.
I’m getting daily calls and surveys about symptoms from the university. Besides just physical health, they’re asking about how I’m holding up mentally and once classes start there’s a vague promise of academic support. I emailed my professors who I might have seen in person to let them know, and it didn’t present any problems thankfully. All in all, it’s been at most mildly inconvenient so far.
I also heard from the Cleveland Department of Public Health. They asked me a bunch of questions about where I’ve been in the past two weeks, what symptoms I’m feeling, and the like. They also sent me an email that included citations of the specific Cleveland and Ohio laws that require me to isolate for the next 10 days, and at least until 72 hours pass symptom-free. Otherwise police may escort me back to my home, if they somehow identify me, which is a fun stipulation. Interestingly enough, they actually require me to get clearance before discontinuing isolation by calling a number which may take 24-48 hours to get back to me.
Anyways, the day I got the news I spent about 2-3 hours on the phone between my parents, the people I’d seen in the last week, and a prescheduled meeting on which I listened to the iPhone noise for getting a call while you’re on a call what seemed like half a dozen times. As a 2000’s baby, that probably tripled my average monthly time on a phone call.
A final note about the “experience of COVID (at least, for a healthy 20-year-old)”: I felt oddly guilty about having the positive diagnosis and having to call all my contacts and parents and tell them I have it. I haven’t been around any crowds or really spent much time with friends since March; most of my time out of the house has been socially distanced grocery runs. It’s not as though I’ve been an idiot about it, but regardless I felt bad about inconveniencing my friends. I suppose I would expect to feel frustrated having gotten a positive test despite spending the past few months relatively isolated, but that hasn’t been among my reactions so far. And despite all the reports of everything from mild flu symptoms to permanent disabilities as a result of the virus, I’m not really scared either. Perhaps this is a side effect of the relatively good end to the summer I’m having otherwise: I was elected to a new position in my fraternity, I got an internship lined up for next summer, and my summer research went pretty well, all things considered. I’ve been having one of the best periods of my college years recently, and I may have some degree of blinders on towards bad news as a result. Only time will tell.
Fun Quarantine Activities
Anyways, taking a 180 degree turn, let’s talk about banana bread! I made some on Friday after getting the test results. I only had two bananas, so it’s more like a banana-flavored cake-like bread thing. Regardless, anything with that much brown sugar and butter can’t be bad. It pairs really well with my cold brew for breakfast. Next I’m looking to make some chocolate chip cookies, if I can guilt one of my friends into bringing groceries to my door. Will update on that front soon!
Otherwise, the timing is basically perfect with the LCS/LEC Playoffs series. I’ve been following pro League of Legends for nearly the lifetime of the eSport, and with all the time on my hands I’ve been able to watch the North American, European, AND Chinese playoffs matches this year. It’s interesting seeing the relative levels of precautions in the three regions: in China, the teams and the broadcast squads are all in studio, just without crowds; European teams are playing from home in Berlin, but the broadcast team is running from the studio on a skeleton crew; and NA is being ran entirely remote out of Los Angeles. If you’re looking to get into it, the Worlds tournament is taking place in China in October. Fun stuff.
I’ve also been rewatching Rhythm and Flow on Netflix, which at minimum has been a better competition show than American Idol or The Voice due to having much more interesting contestants. I think that comes out of the nature of hip hop music – it’s as much about having a unique voice and story as it is about being good at the technical parts of music. All the contestants are performing new, original music every episode. It’s an awesome show if you have any interest in the music.
Closing Thoughts
I’ll plan on posting again sometime early next week after classes have started. With any luck, it’ll be a largely boring update on Algorithms and Accounting classes instead of a sudden turn for the worse. Fingers crossed!
P.S. I’m proud of myself for writing an entire post about COVID without saying “unprecendented”, “Now more than ever”, or “our new normal” even once. Hopefully you appreciate it, too.