My Covid-anxiety ramped up in the days after Christmas, in that familiar way we all knew from the start of the pandemic. We’d gotten comfortable at understanding how to avoid the illness—get your shots, wear a surgical or cloth mask, whatever is comfortable. Don’t go to crowded, indoor places unless you have to (like a subway, for example).
In fact, as vaxxed, brainy sorts of people, my colleagues and I felt comfortable enough to have a few meetings back in the autumn months. And as you all know, I was happy enough with my vaxxed-and-masked status to fly to Portugal and Italy earlier in the year, and those mild risks had paid off in empty tourist quarters and bargain rates.
I’d gotten a booster as soon as New Jersey had decided to make them available to all, and that bit of insurance had gotten me through the initial news of omicron.
I barely remembered the paranoid uncertainty of 2020.
