Covid or 'NotCovid'?

IS THIS IT?

It's a terrible time to be a hypochondriac.  Every media outlet telling you to stay at home and shut yourself away if you show any signs of exhibiting from this long list of symptoms - who could resist such blandishments?  Youthful valetudinarians aside, the young have always seen themselves as immortal, and many, too many, are still acting as if that were true, with parks and proms and squares bustling in many towns and cities.  While the rest of us intently monitor the respiratory condition of anyone who walks within twenty metres, nervously pondering why we have a sudden urge to cough.

And then you actually come down with... something.  Is it just the bug you would have caught anyway at this time of year, or THE virus, the one that's receiving global air time and fame?  How do you know?  Is it going to be obvious?  And that's where we find ourselves...  Confused.

Barbara and I have both come down with some kind of illness, but can we say if it's Covid-19 or not?  No we can't.  There's a list of classic symptoms we're constantly being told about, but how many of them do you need to shout 'House'?  And if you each have different symptoms do you both have the same bug, even though it hits you in different ways?

I have a tight chest and shortness of breath, but apart from one night when I sweated so much I was starting to looks out for sharks, I haven't been feverish much.  Barbara's had the fever, but vomiting isn't on the list.  Neither of us have had much of a cough.  Hence the confusion.

I write this not for looking for any sympathy.  We'll be fine.  Now she's eating again Barbara will soon get some strength back.  Neither of us seems at any risk of placing any further burden on NHS resources.  We have a comfy home, an endless supply of books, music and video, and a cat and each other for company.  Our neighbours have created a mutual-help group for the block and a lovely young couple just brought us some milk.  It's just a bump in the road.

But I thought it worth sharing because determining if you really have coronavirus is, at least in milder cases like this, not that easy to figure out.  Maybe not a big problem in itself - if you're feeling at all unwell then you should immediately shut yourself off from others, that's simple for us all to understand - but it makes you wonder if, when you fully recover, you then have any degree of immunity or not?  Maybe, maybe not.  But even if you did you could still be a carrier, a risk to others, so sticking with the familiar social isolating behaviour is going to be the safest course of action for... however long it takes.

Whatever it is, covid or notcovid, we have both cried 'House' - or rather 'Flat' - and declared ourselves well and truly self isolated until Third of April.  And for now the safest thing is for us all to worry a bit - release your inner hypochondriac.