communicate with your immediate family and friends when a COVID test result returns positive
New South Wales recorded 11,201 COVID cases today and 3 deaths.
Yesterday I took advantage of the morning to drop into Coco Cubano in Macarthur Square to work on Diary of a Mad Chaos while flanked by activity, with a coffee in hand.
Getting A COVID Positive Case Scare
While I worked on Coronavirus In Australia articles, a Facebook notification from Imad popped up on my mobile phone screen. It was quite an interesting message from my double jabbed vaccinated best friend of thirty years.
In an apologetic tone, Imad told me that his cousin tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.
He said, “I went to see my sister for Christmas on Saturday. The next day I came to see you. I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware.”
I reassured him, “That’s all right. If she tells you any more information about her symptoms, just pass them on so that we know what to look out for.”
“It takes about four days before you develop any symptoms. She probably gave it to her whole family,” he explained.
Understanding How COVID Transmission Occurred
Once the initial adrenaline behind his announcement was behind him, Imad shared how his cousin works at a McDonald’s.
“She must have contracted COVID from there.”
He shared that his cousin lives together with her family, and that she is a young girl.
“The young ones don’t get it that bad, so she’ll be all right,” he reassured.
Omicron has been like the latest fad to hit Australia. Delta was dying a stale death as a news story a few weeks ago. Australia news broadcasters needed a new horse. Enter Omicron.
The Australia news media have scared everybody witless with leading Omicron news stories. The truth is that Omicron is far less deadlier than Delta, with most Omicron symptoms mirroring the common cold. Delta seems to have been forgotten in the COVID-19 landscape. Nobody talks about Delta anymore.
Imad lives with his mom. He is probably worried that if he catches COVID, he’ll pass COVID onto his mother. He is also worried that he gave it to me. I live with my wife and child. But I don’t think he would have passed COVID on so quickly, if he did get COVID at all in the first place.
Doing My Own Contact Tracing
When Imad visited our home on Boxing Day, we never got too close to each other. All we did was shake hands towards the end, play a computer game, have a smoke out the front, and exchange Christmas gifts. We did share the same space, but unless Imad was coughing, then I didn’t really take any notice.
Boxing Day was Sunday. It’s already Tuesday, two days later. I have no COVID symptoms so far. The only symptom that I had yesterday and the day before was a runny nose feeling for ten minutes. But that runny nose could have been from sleeping on the futon in the cold weather for two days.
My skull on the right side also feels a bit tender, but that could be anything as well.
Imad’s COVID-19 announcement definitely put me on notice, so much so that I began to do my own impromptu contact tracing. After I heard that one of his family members tested positive for COVID, I have to watch where I go now, in the slim chance that Imad was infected with COVID, and then I was infected with COVID too.
I don’t want to travel too much outside around too many people in case I am asymptomatic with COVID. That’s how the chain of transmission affects whole communities and families of people.
Sharing The COVID Announcement With My Wife
Today, December 29, 2021, in the morning, my wife came out to give me a hug. I had kept Imad’s COVID announcement from her since yesterday afternoon, knowing she would overreact. I had somewhat of a hot feeling forehead this morning however, so I decided to tell her the news that Imad shared with me.
I tried not to hug her.
Then she reacted, “Why? What’s wrong?”
I mentioned, “Imad’s cousin has COVID.”
She gasped, “What! Was that before he came over here?”
I calmly answered, “Yeah. One day before he came over here, he visited his cousin for Christmas. Then he came over here the next day.”
She shriek out again and said, “I’m worried now!”
I told her, “But don’t worry. I don’t think Imad had it, and we probably don’t have it either.”
She still worried.
Thinking on her feet, her wonder turned to our son.
“Do you think we should change the way that we behave around him? What do you think?”
Hit by the sudden news that we could be transmitting COVID, she didn’t know what to think.
I told her, “His cousin tested positive to COVID four days ago. So it’s been four days. I haven’t had any symptoms and neither has Imad. I don’t think he got COVID.”
My wife once again fretted.
I joked, “Don’t worry. I’ll get Delta, and you get Omicron.”
I made a joke about it. She playfully slapped me. Then she got ready to go back to sleep.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
