Grrrrrrrrrrraaargh
Oct. 2nd, 2022 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livNow I really do have Covid. Worst possible timing, because it's the middle of the High Holy Days and means I have to cancel leading services for Yom Kippur.
The thing is that I agreed to take a job leading the High Holy Days services for various small communities this year. I knew it was a risk, and I decided to do it because I have the skills and it was going to make a big difference to the communities who asked for help. So I did travelling and three unmasked services Sunday – Tuesday, and on Friday I tested positive. Meaning I'm letting down the community who were depending on me for Yom Kippur, and there's absolutely nobody who can pick up that big complicated service at three days' notice. I might or might not be able to lead over Zoom, but the community isn't really set up for hybrid, and honestly I'm not sure I'm going to be well enough.
I guess I'll never know, but I keep going back and forth over, was it inevitable that if I led on RH I'd get Covid and have to cancel YK? Could I have made it safer by insisting that the rest of the community wore masks, or even trying to lead masked myself? Should I have skipped the kiddush and communal meals, sticking to my usual principle of avoiding eating indoors? I didn't entirely feel able to insist because I was doing this job as a guest preacher, but maybe I should have done. Also realistically I didn't have a way to eat other than accepting hospitality. Or maybe the train journeys were just doomed, though I did wear a mask the entire time.
There's a plausible hypothesis that I got this not from my RH communities, but fromjack who possibly got it at an unmasked, indoor role-playing event. Which in some ways is more attractive, because it means that it's theoretically possible to do the visiting preacher thing without definitely getting Covid. But in some ways it's worse because, well, indoor all-day unmasked cons are beyond my risk threshold, but I live with someone who does consider that an acceptable trade-off, so maybe there's no point me being careful about such things. And to be fair jack has been doing indoor socializing for many months now, but it's only this week that the plague got us, so again, it's an increased risk but not a certainty.
Of course this may all be irrelevant because if the virus destroys my ability to do intellectual work I won't be in a position to decide whether I want to carry on travelling to lead services in future. But again, I'm telling myself that worrying about such things is useless. I had a pretty bad day yesterday, muscle aches and fever and generally feeling grim, today I'm still certainly ill but feel I'm on the mend and there doesn't seem to be much lung involvement (go vaccines!). I can certainly say that having Covid is far more uncomfortable than wearing a mask, though I know some people find masks more intolerable than I do, and some people suffer less badly with Covid than I have so far. And, well, I took off my mask earlier in the week, not because I was finding it annoying but so that other people could hear me and to be able to participate in activities that don't work well masked.
Clearly my precautions aren't good enough! But I don't know where to go from here; I could give up leading services, but most of my other risks aren't really optional (in-person work, living withjack). My only comfort is that I don't think I've infected anyone else, because I'm being pretty careful about testing before seeing people. If I was infected during Rosh HaShanah, and then got on a train, I think my mask is reasonably good source control and hopefully that was early enough that I wasn't hugely infectious yet. The only person I've spent time with since getting back was hatam_soferet. But wow, I'm grumpy.
The thing is that I agreed to take a job leading the High Holy Days services for various small communities this year. I knew it was a risk, and I decided to do it because I have the skills and it was going to make a big difference to the communities who asked for help. So I did travelling and three unmasked services Sunday – Tuesday, and on Friday I tested positive. Meaning I'm letting down the community who were depending on me for Yom Kippur, and there's absolutely nobody who can pick up that big complicated service at three days' notice. I might or might not be able to lead over Zoom, but the community isn't really set up for hybrid, and honestly I'm not sure I'm going to be well enough.
I guess I'll never know, but I keep going back and forth over, was it inevitable that if I led on RH I'd get Covid and have to cancel YK? Could I have made it safer by insisting that the rest of the community wore masks, or even trying to lead masked myself? Should I have skipped the kiddush and communal meals, sticking to my usual principle of avoiding eating indoors? I didn't entirely feel able to insist because I was doing this job as a guest preacher, but maybe I should have done. Also realistically I didn't have a way to eat other than accepting hospitality. Or maybe the train journeys were just doomed, though I did wear a mask the entire time.
There's a plausible hypothesis that I got this not from my RH communities, but from
jack who possibly got it at an unmasked, indoor role-playing event. Which in some ways is more attractive, because it means that it's theoretically possible to do the visiting preacher thing without definitely getting Covid. But in some ways it's worse because, well, indoor all-day unmasked cons are beyond my risk threshold, but I live with someone who does consider that an acceptable trade-off, so maybe there's no point me being careful about such things. And to be fair jack has been doing indoor socializing for many months now, but it's only this week that the plague got us, so again, it's an increased risk but not a certainty. Of course this may all be irrelevant because if the virus destroys my ability to do intellectual work I won't be in a position to decide whether I want to carry on travelling to lead services in future. But again, I'm telling myself that worrying about such things is useless. I had a pretty bad day yesterday, muscle aches and fever and generally feeling grim, today I'm still certainly ill but feel I'm on the mend and there doesn't seem to be much lung involvement (go vaccines!). I can certainly say that having Covid is far more uncomfortable than wearing a mask, though I know some people find masks more intolerable than I do, and some people suffer less badly with Covid than I have so far. And, well, I took off my mask earlier in the week, not because I was finding it annoying but so that other people could hear me and to be able to participate in activities that don't work well masked.
Clearly my precautions aren't good enough! But I don't know where to go from here; I could give up leading services, but most of my other risks aren't really optional (in-person work, living with
jack). My only comfort is that I don't think I've infected anyone else, because I'm being pretty careful about testing before seeing people. If I was infected during Rosh HaShanah, and then got on a train, I think my mask is reasonably good source control and hopefully that was early enough that I wasn't hugely infectious yet. The only person I've spent time with since getting back was hatam_soferet. But wow, I'm grumpy.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:25 pm (UTC)So much sympathy. Please rest as much as you can, and take even more time to recover than you think you need to. Maybe take my case as encouragement: I have more limitations than I did pre-Covid, but I've certainly not lost all ability to do intellectual or physical activity.
I also want to say, it probably wasn't inevitable you'd get Covid from leading on RH. Even sharing food etc. It's not so easy as a binary safe/not-safe. But it could be worth reviewing activities in future with an eye to where exposure can be reduced (ventilation, masking, testing) in ways that are compatible with the activity.
Likewise, Jack doing indoor cons doesn't have to mean you are exposed to the same risk: when I go play ice hockey, or take crowded public transport to see theatre in London, I take extra care with ventilation at home the next couple of days, so if I have brought home an unwelcome guest, there's less chance of passing it on.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:42 pm (UTC)+1 I think at this point, there isn't anything you can do to be sure you'll never get it. It's absolutely not a binary. If the community is set up for it/their practice allows it, microphones can compensate for the muffling effects of masks; that's the only practical advice I have about this...
So sorry about Yom Kippur.
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Date: 2022-10-02 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:38 pm (UTC)Wherever you caught this particular bug from, I do think that High Holy Days services have the potential to be superspreader events. I'll be wearing an FFP3 mask to Yom Kippur services and I'm still a bit worried, given that I'm flying out for a visit to my parents on the next day. Almost no one here in Oxford is masking apart from me, and I really wish they were (leaders of services excepted).
But it's so difficult. I have been going to kiddush, slipping down my mask to take a sip of wine, putting it back, greeting a few people and then leaving. It's not a way to live in the long term.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:46 pm (UTC)+1
It's not a way to live in the long term.
+1 even though even before COVID, some people had to live that way anyway.
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2022-10-06 09:26 pm (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:44 pm (UTC)I don't think you need to blame yourself or your precautions. You got unlucky, that's all. COVID has shown us that shy of permanently locking yourself in a room alone and getting food shoved through the door, there's no precautions you can take that are foolproof. And fortunately we have vaccines and therapeutics and a lot more tools now for dealing with it when it does happen.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-04 10:27 am (UTC)Omicron is more infectious, true. But also we had some minimal public health precautions, people were encouraged to test regularly, and were notified and encouraged to isolate if exposed. We had some very limited mask mandates, on public transport and in shops for example. Choosing between permanent full isolation, and just getting Covid constantly, is a false binary. The big extension to my 2021 lifestyle is in person services, and I'm specifically trying to decide whether I should give up on shul, not whether I should drop all precautions because nothing is foolproof, or never leave my room.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:44 pm (UTC)I know you know this, but it also sounds like you're catastrophising a bit right now: there are no inevitabilities with this. We're all taking risks constantly, small or large, and at some point the percentages tip and you catch something. You can do absolutely everything "right" and just be unlucky one day. That doesn't mean your risk calculations were wrong, only that there's no 100% guaranteed safe option. You concluded that hosting these services was worth the risk involved; you're not wrong about that just because you got sick.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-04 10:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 12:46 pm (UTC)I think it's overwhelmingly more likely that you caught it from Jack - but I am no scientist so that's just my take, I don't actually know anyone who has caught covid from public transport or large group settings, most people seem to catch it from someone in their household or from a small group setting. Of course it's hard to be sure but that's my anecdata.
I found catching covid was in some ways helpful in terms of giving me more info to calibrate my risk tolerance. I was miserably ill for 2-3 days and then it took me a few weeks before I felt 100%. But I don't seem to have any long covid. So for me I have decided - especially given that having it will have given me some immunity - on balance, I am happy to take the risk and do the limited socialising I am able to do as a parent of two young children.
I say this not because I think you should do exactly the same but just because I find it helpful to hear other people's reasoning so I thought you might too
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 03:17 pm (UTC)I definitely know people who caught Covid at large-group settings: I went to Eastercon in April, and more than 10% of the attendees reported getting Covid afterward, despite a vaccination requirement, masking everywhere "except when actively eating or drinking", and a request to test before attending. A friend was telling me a couple weeks ago that some of their research colleagues went to a conference with no masking, vaccination or testing requirements, and pretty much everyone came back from the conference with Covid.
I am 99% I got my case of Covid from the day I staffed two ice hockey games for my club back-to-back, unmasked to reduce communication issues, and crammed into quite a small space with a lot of hockey players, coaches, and fellow volunteers. One of the other volunteers got ill the same time as me, 3-4 days afterward, and neither of us went anywhere else that week. So that's pretty likely it was from one of the 70-100 or so people involved over those two games.
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Date: 2022-10-02 01:18 pm (UTC)Everything about this sucks. But it's all stochastic suckiness perceived through fog. You can take all of the right decisions and still have the dice come up wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-04 11:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 03:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 03:29 pm (UTC)I didn't/couldn't put it into words at the time I had COVID, but on top of the fever, tiredness, muscle aches, etc I was scared about the potential for catching Long Covid and not being able to work, which made it harder to sleep [which was obviously bad, when unwell and in need of sleep]. And awareness of the potential for Long Covid is a bit rubbish because there's little you can do to prevent it - it's unclear who gets it/doesn't get it and why:-/
Grumpiness might be partially a function of your illness. Can you distract yourself from being angry into doing something restful? Books might need too much concentration. Resting / relaxing = good for healing. Or if you can't/don't want to be less grumpy, can you channel that energy into eg. building a corsi-rosenthal box or researching a HEPA filter for further improving the air quality at home? [Corsi-rosenthal boxes are I think, a bit tricker to build in the UK because they rely on a type of fan we don't usualy have]. Portable HEPA filters exist - I researched a bit but didn't get very far, re size/weight/price and suitability for taking with me on the train. But taking your own with you might work well for hotel rooms / meetings etc.
Hope you're feeling better soon and work / other things you're committed to doing are understanding.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 07:58 pm (UTC)Well, it seems like there's probably a correlation between reporting 'long Covid' and general mental anxiety: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-s-most-likely-to-report-long-covid-
Correlation is not causation, of course, but if you don't want to get 'long Covid', then a good first step might be to not be the sort of person who worries about getting 'long Covid'.
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2022-10-02 08:56 pm (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Date: 2022-10-02 03:43 pm (UTC)Personally my greatest challenge with covid was seriously giving myself time to rest, WAAAAY more time than I initially thought I might need. The rest with stress reduction seems to reduce the probability of long covid. I found that helped me take a deep breath and just cancel even more commitments, and let everyone down because actually that was the right thing to do.
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Date: 2022-10-04 11:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 04:57 pm (UTC)sympathy for both physical and moral problems.
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Date: 2022-10-02 09:20 pm (UTC)Vaccination does seem to offer some protection against long covid, and a shorter duration of symptomatic illness is also predictive of a complete recovery, so I think your odds of being able to keep doing what you're doing are very good. But I'm so sorry that it costs you Yom Kippur in the meantime.
These calculations of risk and community are incredibly difficult. I'm missing out on High Holidays with my shul community of choice because their services are indoors, and though I'm grateful to have another shul's outdoor services to attend, the vibe is different and my friends aren't there and it's just not the same. But I'm going to visit my girlfriend the day after Yom Kippur, and plane travel is very risky now that mask mandates are gone in the U.S. (despicable), so I had to really limit my risk and exposure otherwise. I imagine it's even harder when you're somewhat in a leadership role but also have little control over things like venue. You have all my sympathies.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 11:47 pm (UTC)Having to constantly weigh COVID risk calculations with community and personal needs is exhausting. We're all doing our best to take care of ourselves and each other and have been for years now. Take care, get well soon, and gmar chatima tova.
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Date: 2022-10-02 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-02 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2022-10-03 01:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 07:36 am (UTC)P.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 10:38 am (UTC)I think the mitigations that might have prevented this are much more widespread masking in public spaces where it's easy to do this (e.g. on trains) and better ventilation standards everywhere (especially e.g. in schools). There's not much an individual can do about either of those, so your choices were "take some risks" or "don't do the things you love and feel called to do" and that's just a horrible position to be in.
I hope you make a good recovery.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 01:23 pm (UTC)I don't know if I'd quite say your precautions aren't good enough - I don't think covid is inevitable, but there's certainly an element of luck. Idk, it's all difficult.
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Date: 2022-10-03 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-03 09:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-04 07:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-04 01:09 pm (UTC)I'm not sure if this helps, but it might help to consider, when you don't feel able to insist, how much of that is not expecting people to agree? Vs how much is it feeling like it would be unfair even if they did agree? Or how much is worrying if it would be disapproved of by the wider community? All of those are things you could talk about with people you talk to about rabbi stuff, but knowing more specifically might help decide more definitively what you might be able to ask for in future if you decide you would want to, vs what it's best not to.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-10-07 03:27 am (UTC)(Though I realize that especially in an environment that has decided covid is over, this might have social costs that you may be less willing to bear than I. It *shouldn’t*, but people can be like that.)