My short, boring COVID-19 infection, treatment, and recovery

Since the beginning of the pandemic, my family has taken the novel coronavirus just about as seriously as anybody we know. In one way this was made easy since the United States imposed virtually no restrictions during the entire course of the plague, and we were already used to working remotely, so office closures didn’t make much of an impact on our day-to-day routines. And, at least in the period since rapid testing became free and easily available, we managed to avoid contracting the virus to the best of our knowledge.

Until now! For readers who have similarly been dodging raindrops since 2020, I thought a quick breakdown of my infection and recovery might be interesting.

Background: vaccinated, boosted

Since the initial rollout of vaccines, I’ve been eager to get to the front of the line, and received Pfizer doses on March 13 and April 13, 2021, plus a Pfizer booster on November 19, 2021. I had no reaction to my initial dose and booster, but the second dose left me with aches and pains and a very low fever for around a day afterwards.

Infection: possibly Saturday, August 27, 2022

As I said, my family is extremely diligent about wearing high-quality masks indoors, and if I had to guess I’d say mask wearing indoors in our area is roughly 30-50%. On Saturday I went to a crowded, hot, outdoor farmers market, and while I wore my mask much of the time, essentially no one else did.

First symptoms: Monday, August 29, 2022

I’ve been spending a lot of time at our outdoor community pool lately, since it is scheduled to close today, and on Monday started to feel pretty rough. I thought it was some combination of dehydration and heat stroke, and when I got home my partner seemed worried I was a bit out of it. Overnight I began coughing, and woke up with some chest pain.

First positive test: Tuesday, August 30, 2022

It didn’t occur to me to test Monday night, but on Tuesday morning I took one of the dozens of rapid tests in my linen closet, and it came back an immediate positive. It turns out you don’t really need to wait the full 15 or 20 minutes to get your test result: if you’re positive, the test will show it almost right away.

Since I had a pantry full of tests, I promptly took a second one, which if anything came back even faster. I had COVID-19.

Paxlovid telemedicine appointment: Tuesday, August 30, 2022

My city has contracted with a telemedicine provider to prescribe Paxlovid, the anti-viral medication that’s under emergency use authorization from the FDA to treat COVID-19 in high-risk adults. After a few minutes of fretting, I decided to go ahead and request an appointment. The nice lady on her couch in Arizona asked me a few questions, confirmed I was eligible, and said she’d send my prescription in to the pharmacy of my choice. Within 15-20 minutes I was notified my prescription was ready for me at my nearby Safeway pharmacy.

Now, you may have already foreseen an obvious problem here: the pharmacy is inside the Safeway. But I’m a highly infectious carrier of the novel coronavirus. But because this is America, there was nothing to do about it. I walked into the pharmacy, asked for the prescription, and the pharmacist recoiled in horror: “You cannot be in here! You are putting all of our lives in danger!”

Well, no shit lady, that’s why I need the pills. She ended up relenting, and thus my Paxlovid journey began.

(Failed) quarantine

During the first 3 days of my positive tests, my partner and I did our best to maintain an in-house quarantine. We knew I was positive, and we knew she was exposed, but she was still testing negative, so our logic was the more we could do to isolate, the higher a chance we could keep it that way. On Friday, 3 days after my first positive test, she finally tested positive as well. Given the near-certainty I was the source of the infection so we weren’t risking any radical mutations in the virus, at that point we broke down the quarantine and started a Lord of the Rings marathon.

Paxlovid treatment: Tuesday PM - Sunday AM

The Paxlovid treatment is pretty simple: 3 pills, twice a day, for 5 days. I only had two side effects, diarrhea on the first two days, and Paxlovid Mouth the entire time. For obvious reasons, I’ll focus on the latter.

Paxlovid Mouth is strange because it began almost as soon as I took the first evening’s round of medication, and is only completely wearing off now (about 30 hours after my last dose). If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s an extremely widely experienced side effect of Paxlovid that gives the entire inside of your mouth a single, rather unpleasant, bitter flavor. I compare it to the moment after you swallow a bite of grapefruit, when the sweetness is gone and your mouth is left tasting only the underlying bitterness.

It’s not that bad to begin with, if you’re expecting it, and after a while you get used to it, but it doesn’t really go away the entire time you’re taking the drug — except when you’re eating and drinking. If it bothers you a lot there’s not really anything to do but have a range of sweet and savory snacks lying around to suck on, since as long as you’re eating or drinking, the sensation goes away entirely.

First negative test: Saturday, September 3, 2022

As I said, since I have a closet full of rapid tests, I didn’t see any reason not to test every day. Between Tuesday and Friday all my tests were positive, but Saturday morning I got my first negative rapid test, and had the same result Sunday and today, so my total tested positivity period was just 4 days (although if I had tested Monday, August 29 I’m sure it would have been positive as well).

I’m now feeling fine, although mindful of the possibility of a “rebound” like Biden and Fauci experienced after their own courses of Paxlovid treatment.

Conclusion

I am perfectly aware that it’s impossible to say anything apolitical about the pandemic, and I am not going to try.

I got vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible.

I wear high-quality masks indoors and on transit.

I began Paxlovid immediately after testing positive.

I quarantined.

I had a short and uneventful experience with the disease.

Other people who took none of those steps had the same outcome.

Other people who took all of those steps died.

But I’m happy I took the steps I did and happy I had the outcome I did.