Life in a time of coronavirus

It's a roll-over!

At the start of the month, I went to see one of our production sites in Norfolk and ended up being caught up in the start of the 'pingdemic'. Based on the 10-day timing, I'm pretty certain that the exposure happened at the Premier Inn at Kings Lynn. However, that means that it was either through the wall overnight or through the screen when I was in breakfast for 20 minutes in the morning. I can rule out work as I get to see who is affected through my health & safety role, and also because our general policy (as we have tight track and trace at work) is to have phones switched off. This was a Bluetooth ping, so I've no real way of telling. 

Anyway, that led to 6 days of self-isolation while the family was out and about. Just after midnight on the final day, I went for a walk around the block and the sense of freedom was amazing. I'd not got any symptoms and my lateral flows showed clear, so it just became work with me trapped in the house and garden. Frustrating, but with the role I do, I didn't want to break quarantine (even though there is technically no legal requirement to isolate for this kind of alert, it's just a strong recommendation) because there was always the chance I'd missed what the exposure was.

Here we go again.

I had a week of freedom, and then, this weekend as the school holidays started, the eldest looked a bit off-colour. Symptoms weren't the official COVID-19 ones, but they did match the Delta variant. He had a sore throat, a lot of fatigue, and was very pale. We tested him and got a positive result, following that up with a PCR rest on Monday. That came back positive on Tuesday (but the youngest was clear) so we're now back in self-isolation until next week. 

At the moment, Nathan is doing okay. He certainly perked up when I installed the Xbox in his room. He's spending most of his time in there and being careful - using mask and cleaning wipes - when he comes out to try and avoid anyone else getting it. Both Jill and I are double-jabbed (I'm AZ, she's Pfizer), which will protect us. However, Aidan isn't and there's always the worry of long-COVID for both of them. I think it'll be a long week until we get out of the house again.

I think - looking at the time left - that these two isolations have blown my plan to hit the 5k distance before my birthday. Such is life. It’ll be August when we’re through this, assuming none of us catch it from the lad. 

28 July 2021