According to the Covid Calendar, it is March 2,112th 2020 – almost 6 years since the covid lockdowns. And, for the first time, I have a confirmed case of covid. I’d begun to wonder if I was somehow immune – I guess the best I can hope for now is ‘resistant’.
At the end of last week, I thought I had a cold, and casually went on with my life. I rested most of the weekend but, by Monday, my throat became painful. Whoever described it as ‘razor blade throat’ did a good job, and gave me a clue what had happened. The final confirmation came with two lines on a covid test. I tried to work on Monday, wanting to keep abreast of urgent tasks, but by lunchtime I submitted to not being well and needing to rest and recover.
I’m not the only person in the house – we have a friend staying too – so it’s been an old-fashioned quarantine for me, confined to the top floor. It’s not so bad – I’ve had delicious meals delivered, and so far nobody else has tested positive. I’ve been tired mostly – napping and catching up on my letterboxd watchlist.
It’s strange to finally get covid when it barely matters, particularly after all the fuss in 2020/21. Covid was such a huge event, and it sometimes feels like it never happened. Odd traces persist – like ghost signs in the streets, this article about queueing in pubs. Isolating with covid in 2026 feels a little like being a time traveller, trapped in 2020. At the start of March 2020, it seemed that things would have been very different because of the pandemic. It turned out to be business as usual, but slightly worse.