Covid is a completely different experience when it happens really close to you

“So many people are dying from this and it’s a totally horrible thing, but when it happens really close to you it’s a completely different experience.”

That’s a quote from a former student of Clearwater (FL) High School music teacher Rosemary Caldwell Collins, who died from the Covid early this week. According to her family, she was fine Sunday. She died Tuesday.

In Douglas County Oregon, one person went to work sick. Later, he tested positive for the Covid. Within two weeks, seven people died and three hundred others were placed in quarantine. The article that described this didn’t indicate whether that person survived.

Until November, I didn’t know anyone who tested positive. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that number increased substantially. Now I’m personally connected to someone who died from it.

There’s been a lot written about living in fear–and how we shouldn’t do it. But actions have consequences. Rosemary Collins caught the Covid from someone. Seven deaths have been traced back to a single person in Oregon. And those three hundred quarantined–who knows how that’ll work out?

And if you infect someone and they infect two friends and they infect two friends and so on and so on, you have the shampoo commercial from hell. It’s like multi-level marketing where you have a piece of the action for the entire tree you create.

I shared the Covid with two friends and they shared with two friends and so on and so on and so on.

It’s a different experience if it happens to you.

Even now, the odds of my catching and transferring the Covid are small. I live in a suburban-rural area north of Tampa. But the odds of my encountering someone with the disease are increasing. While the Thanksgiving bump is starting to recede in a few places, most numbers are still higher than they’ve been. And even here, it’s been cold, which means people have been inside together.

So as New Year’s approaches, don’t be afraid, but while you assume your risk is minimal, consider the impact of what might happen if you let down.

Like the woman said, when it happens really close to you, it’s a completely different experience.