Road Covid

Positive again....

The obligatory vaccine selfie from April, 2021. I’ve had six shots in total.

I started travelling again in the fall of 2021, after I had had a couple of vaccinations for Covid.

Obviously your potential exposure to the virus rises when you are in busy public settings such as airports and restaurants. I have now had six Covid shots but nonetheless came down with my second case of Covid this week. Both times I got hit while I was on the road.

Nearly a year ago, I was on a flight from Heathrow to Oslo and a kid in my row, sitting on the other side of his mom, was sneezing his head off. Several days later, I was climbing a mountain beside the scenic village of Reine in the Lofoten Islands when I felt unaccountably tired. I mean, it was a big climb, but I had done a similar hike two days earlier and had felt fine. I also was feeling a bit of vertigo, which is not something I am prone to.

Me pretending to feel better than I do, above Reine, Norway

When I got back to level ground, I expected that I would immediately rebound. But instead it was a bit of a trudge back to my cabin, a couple of kilometres away. I had been travelling for five or six weeks, had a beautiful view out my window, and thought there was no reason I could not treat myself to a down day, resting and reading.

My reading chair in Reine

But foolishly, it did not occur to me to test for Covid even though I had a package of tests stowed in my luggage.

It wasn’t until the next day, after a night during which I felt as if I had strep throat that I finally took the test. I was so deep in denial that when the first bright red stripe appeared, I thought to myself, “that must be the control bar”. Nope.

The rules in Norway at the time were that travellers “try to isolate” for four days after a positive test. The truth is that when you are travelling it isn’t easy to isolate entirely. But I was alone in my rental car, alone in my hotel cabin, and alone hiking along seaside trails—at least more than socially distanced. It is certainly easier to isolate if you are travelling alone than if you are with others.

The wind in the Lofoten Islands is so dry and steady off the sea that the local industry, traditionally, has been “stockfish”—wind-dried cod. I found this incredible but the fish dry so quickly on their racks that the seagulls seem to leave them alone.

Fish drying in the Lofoten Islands. I assumed the wind that dried the fish would also blow away the microbes.

There was a restaurant by the sea where the wind howled and I would sit away from all the other people huddling near the heaters. Because it was Norway and the pandemic, I could order lunch with a QR code and have it delivered to me with hardly any contact with the servers. I’d take off my mask only after they left.

Luckily for me, by the time of my return flight, I was able to answer honestly that I had no fever or cough—which is what was required of me to fly.

Unlike the coughing boy on the Oslo flight, the source of infection this time is a mystery to me.

I was staying with a friend in Port Coquitlam when I noticed what seemed like seasonal allergies to me—no surprise since the lower mainland is starting to bloom. Even a day or so later I still thought I had a minor head cold and nothing more. In the end, I tested only because a group of us were meeting up for dinner with a particularly Covid-averse friend and I wanted to be able to re-assure her if I sneezed that I had just tested negative.

The bright red line came as a complete shock.

By that point, I had arrived at the home of other friends in North Vancouver. They insisted that I could stay with them notwithstanding the test result, but after a little hesitation, I decided to go to a hotel.

BC’s advice to Covid sufferers is suitably vague and not adaptable in any obvious way for those in transit:

My symptoms are extremely mild. Unlike my first bout when I was very fatigued and suffered a severely sore throat, this time I feel like I have the kind of mild cold that wouldn’t have kept me home from work back in the day.

I have found a route in and out of the hotel where I am staying—through the stairwell and the parking garage—that enables me to avoid guests and staff entirely. I’ve been able to walk, masked and socially distanced, along the harbour path. I walked nine kilometres yesterday.

The Covid corridor in and out of the hotel

There’s a fast food place nearby where I can order from the app and then just pop in and grab my food when I see it is ready through the window. And then there’s room service…

I have had to cancel a visit friends in Parksville on Vancouver Island, but am hoping to rescue some plans for Victoria next week. Fingers crossed.

Since I arrived in the lower mainland, I don’t think I have conducted myself very differently than I do in Ottawa, except that I have been exposed to more strangers and I have seen many more friends than I would typically do in just a few days back home.

I sent messages to everyone I had seen in recent days to tell them I am ill. Unfortunately, a couple with whom I went on a walk, joined for lunch and had a short car ride before I was experiencing any significant symptoms have both tested positive since I saw them. I am quite upset about having given them Covid. It is a reminder of how insidious and persistent the pandemic remains.