April 27, 2021 Lucky!

April 27, 2021 Up Front and Personal With Covid

Another of Life’s triumphs! Ray and I have just recovered from a bout with Covid. After over a year of avoiding it, and even having our first vaccine, I started running a fever and feeling pretty dragged out two weeks ago. Two days after a marathon Golfito/Frontera run, which is where I’m assuming we picked up the virus.

I've spent majority of my convalescence hanging out on the deck reading and watching birds.
Not so bad.....

For me the worst was an outbreak of sores on my back which proved to be a staph infection. Initially, I thought my ailments were related to that. However, when I visited the doctor for a followup and explained my symptoms he suggested a Covid test.  And, surprise - +++++

I was pretty tired and listless for about a week, while Ray had almost no symptoms. We, of course, were much more worried about Ray because of his illness last year. Go figure! So for a week I read, played a lot of online word games and took many naps. 

Meanwhile, life went on. A number of home and garden projects continued. We’re getting regular rain showers now and everything is blooming and growing. 

I’m also pleased to announce that my sense of smell has returned. My first inkling that it had gone came with disinfecting our laundry because of the staph infection. I dumped some bleach into the washer and couldn’t smell it. So I dumped some more, and nada. Thinking the bleach container was mistakenly filled with water, I went to dump it out in the sink, and realized from the slimy feeling on my hands it was indeed bleach. A little scary. I tested citrus, some fresh herbs and even some smelly soaps and nothing. 

The "vacuna" (vaccination) mobile - two guys and a cooler

Door to Door Service

I have to say that I am again quite impressed with Costa Rica’s health system. Two guys showed up in our driveway on a motorcycle with a cooler, filled out some paperwork, and shot us up. I’m assuming they’ll return on May 5th, for our next jab. 

Like other socialized medical systems I think non essential surgeries require a lot of waiting, and in most cases you share a room with a few others in the hospital. But the availability of a local clinic (appointments and test results are online) and the fact that their Covid vaccinating seems to be only a month or so behind the US is pretty good, I'd say. Initially CR has been using only the Pfizer vaccines, but they are now receiving Astra Zeneca as well, which is distributed through the WHO’s COVAX program, that provides vaccines to moderate and poor countries. 

Underreported Cases

I’ve read a number of news reports that claim (Sorry, Trumpers) there may be only as much as 1/10th, or less, of the Covid cases that are actually reported. So the virus is probably much more widespread. Our case demonstrates this perfectly. First, neither of us knew we were infected. I thought my problem was the staph, and Ray was fine. Even when we were tested, I asked the doctor if he, or we, should report the infection. He said we would need to go to the hospital and be retested for our cases to be registered. 

So imagine how many asymptomatic people there are, or others that just blow it off. because they aren’t very sick. Several people we recently spoke to from Golfito said “grippe” (their explanation for anything from the sniffles to debilitating flu) was all over the town. Was it Covid instead? Who knows?

Meanwhile, I totally get how something like that spreads so rapidly through a community, especially when extended families live in close quarters. Like most of the world!

Anyway, we lucked out.

Ray is showing off his vaccination shot (see the cotton wool swab on his arm) - and he needed to show off his fake shotgun, which is really a piece of driftwood. Getting shot!!!