In Dallas, Your COVID Experience, Mine and Abbott's Can Be Unique

DALLAS, TX — This is my third day back at work after getting sick with COVID-19.

Being fully vaccinated, I was surprised to contract the virus at all. But without being vaccinated, there's every chance I could have ended up in an urn on someone's mantle by now.

When the techies test you with their 2-foot brain swab, they don't type you. They don't say, "Darn it, you seem to have contracted the delta variant." They just explain that you're positive and need to immediately get as alone as you can for 10 days. Then your sample goes off to a lab somewhere, and they're the ones who mutter, "Darn it. Another delta variant breakthrough."

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I'm lucky in that I could find a place to be by myself. Not everyone can. Some folks have kids, elderly parents, jobs they can't let drop for half a day, let alone 10. So I've spent some time being thankful — thankful for the shots (I was Moderna-fied in January and February), grateful that my Patch supervisor told me to back off work until I felt better, and glad that my ride through the Great Pandemic was much less bumpy than others'.

But while in isolation, you also have time to think. And one of the things you think about are the unvaccinated who are prolonging this nightmare for us all. I had someone on social media call me out about this, by the way. He said that there was "no proof" that I was infected by someone unvaccinated.

Well, he's right. But we would have reached herd immunity by now if everyone who was eligible had taken their shots. The delta or lambda mutations wouldn't have found such a firm foothold in the community, and then none of us so-called "breakthrough" cases would be struggling to get back to full speed. I may have been infected by someone else who was vaccinated, but eventually it all tracks back to those who, for whatever reason, thought they didn't need to be a part of ending this.

As I've said, I'm told my case has been mild so far. My taste buds still tell me that Coke Zero has only the flavor of wet bubbles, and I can sleep for 10 hours, wake up and want to be snoozing again two hours later. But I never experienced shortness of breath, and my headaches and low-grade fever are now gone. But that's me.

Some, like Gov. Greg Abbott, say they're entirely asymptomatic. That, plus the fact that he has an entire staff looking after him and receiving monoclonal antibodies to help his immune system mount a response means that he'll probably sail right through a disease that's killed nearly 55,000 of his neighbors and constituents.

My fear is that with such a gentle passage through the crucible that is COVID-19, Abbott won't learn anything. Like his hero and mentor, Donald Trump, he'll believe that the coronavirus is just something you have to grin and bear.

As the then-president said last year, "A lot of people were saying, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do anything, just ride it.’ They say, ‘Ride it like a cowboy. Just ride it. Ride that sucker right through.’"

Even from his sick bed, Abbott is maintaining his stance against mask mandates as a point of pride and to appease his political base. As school districts struggle to find ways to protect their students (in Paris, Texas, they circumvented the governor's ban by making masks a part of the school dress codes), and infected unvaccinated Texans take up every available hospital bed in the state, he'll remain resolute.

His COVID-19 experience will be easy-peasy. Mine is manageable. But for you — parents, students, essential workers and the rest — the future looks as formidable as it is unknowable. I'm thinking about you tonight.

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