Tangle - My Covid-19 story

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Isaac tells the tale of his Covid-19 diagnosis.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be doing something a little bit different. Six days ago, I tested positive for COVID-19. A lot of listeners and readers have since asked me to share various details about what happened. How did I get sick? Did I infect

anyone around me? How sick was I? Do I think I have the Omicron variant? Others have simply asked me to write about my experience, curious what I've learned or if any of my views related to the pandemic have changed. We've all been living with COVID-19 for about two years now. Around 50 million people in the U.S. alone have gotten the virus, and about 274 million people worldwide have. So my experience is anything but unique. However, it does come at a unique time, and I thought the experience itself was actually pretty illuminating. So today, I've decided to take a brief break from our typical Monday to Thursday newsletter to grant those requests and

to share the story about what happened, how insidious all this virus stuff is, and how broken all of our systems to address it still feel. If this is your first time listening to Tangle, I apologize. There's an archive of our podcast you can go through or an archive of our posts if you're reading the newsletter. You can go check those out. At the end of this essay, we'll have some quick hits from the day and our Have a Nice Day story as we always do to wash it down. and tomorrow we'll be back with your regular programming. Part one, the lead-up. One of the most important elements of my positive COVID-19 experience was what was happening about 10 days before I tested positive. I was feeling kind of sick.

From about Monday, December 6th to Friday, December 10th, I had what I can really only describe as allergy-like symptoms. A runny nose, a cough at night, waking up with a little congestion. Of course, in the COVID-19 era, all my mind could think was that I had somehow come down with the virus. So I did what I'd been told to do. I got tested. On Thursday, December 9th that week, I took a COVID-19 rapid test. Like the dozens of tests before it, it came back negative, and with it, my fears about whether I really had anything to worry about melted away. By Friday, I didn't have any symptoms, and I felt pretty much the same way I always do during the winter. A dry throat when I wake up, maybe a little runny nose here or there after being outside. On Friday afternoon, my wife

Phoebe and I had a cleaning service come to our house. This is not really a typical practice for us, but Phoebe was gearing up for finals and sending out all her law school applications, and so we decided to treat ourselves rather than spending the three to four hours it'd take to clean our apartment. I promised to be the one to stay home and let the cleaners in, so my wife stayed out at her office and then at a coffee shop around the corner while I handled it. The two women came to our house and spent about four hours cleaning. One wore a mask the entire time she was inside, and the others kind of took hers on and off, something I noticed but didn't really think much of in my pre-Omicron, pre-outbreak state of mind. Pretty much everyone in New York City is vaccinated, and pretty much everyone is loose with all the other COVID-19 regulations because of that.

On Saturday morning, I felt great. Phoebe's friend Sam and her boyfriend Trevor, who happens to be Tangle's podcast editor, came over for brunch. Sam and our boyfriend Trevor, who happens to be Tangle's podcast editor, came over for brunch. Trevor and I have done a ton of remote work together, and this was only our third time meeting in person despite working on the Tangle podcast all this time. And because of COVID-19, it was a really nice laid-back brunch that we hadn't really had a chance to do, and they were in our apartment for a few hours. Around 5 p.m. that night, Phoebe and I went to a local CVS and got our booster shots. We had tried scheduling it for about two weeks, and this was the earliest

appointment we could get on a Friday or Saturday, which was important to us since neither of us could really afford time for being sick from the booster shot during the week. On Saturday night, a couple hours after getting our boosters, we went out to dinner with two friends. We ate indoors at a lovely restaurant I won't name because I don't want to tarnish it, but like all New York restaurants, they checked our vaccine cards and IDs at this restaurant. Unlike many New York restaurants, they actually seemed to look closely at our cards and IDs and didn't just let us waltz in. We had a great time, had three or four rounds after dinner,

and ended up staying in the restaurant for close to four hours. On Sunday, I got crushed by the booster. I woke up with a fever, my body ached, my skin felt sensitive all over. It felt identical to how I felt after my second COVID-19 shot. I was happy it was working and annoyed with Phoebe, who, as with both of her first shots, didn't get any symptoms at all. Then I did what I do every Sunday afternoon in the fall. I watched football all day. I worked on the Tangle newsletter. Phoebe spent the day studying.

And by that night, I felt basically fine. All in all, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill weekend, one just like dozens of others I've had since being fully vaccinated last spring, one that was near normal. On Monday, when I woke up, it was more of the same. My booster shot symptoms were all gone. I had a little bit of a runny nose, as I had most of the days of the week before, and after blowing my nose a few times, I felt pretty much normal. I went to my shared office with a few friends, and then I went to play a pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee at a park in Brooklyn. It felt great to run around. We got in a fight over the fields with some local softball guys. I piled into a car with a few friends and drove 10 minutes to another field. We played,

I gave a friend a ride home, and then I went to bed. On Tuesday, I worked all day. Same thing. Around 5 p.m., I got on a train and headed into Manhattan to go to Madison Square Garden to watch the Knicks vs. Warriors game. This was, in no uncertain terms, a kind of lifetime event. I'm a sports junkie, I'd never been to a Knicks home game, and I had bought the ticket a couple weeks before on the prospect that Steph Curry, the greatest three-point shooter of all time, might break the NBA record for three-pointers made while inside the mecca of basketball. The bet paid off in glorious fashion, and Steph was just two three-pointers short heading into the game,

making it a damn near guarantee we were going to witness history. That we was me and a few other basketball junkie friends who had sporadically bought tickets and were sitting in various spots throughout the arena for the game. I remember, now vividly, sneezing into my mask on the subway. It's kind of a gross experience and it was something that hadn't really happened to me very often over the last two years. Given the week I just had, the symptoms, the negative tests, the booster shot, not knowing anyone with COVID, I'll be honest and say I basically thought nothing of this. I had some tissues in my pocket for my usual wintry, runny nose. I used them. I went on with my night with little other thought about it.

At the garden, my four friends and I met up for food beforehand and to sit and watch Curry's legendary pregame warm-up routine. It was worth the price of admission for whatever it's worth. After about 30 minutes, I went to sit in the upper level seats with a friend and the other three guys stayed in the seats they were in. Throughout the game, my symptoms seemed to get worse. I sneezed a few more times. I was blowing my nose often toward the end of the night, right there in the middle of a packed, sold-out Madison Square Garden, sitting next to a friend with a four-month-old baby at home. By the time I got back to my house, I was feeling like I had the week before when I got the negative COVID test. With a long day ahead of me, I knew I needed

some sleep and wanted to attack it, so I just took some NyQuil, a Hall's cough drop, and I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I was sick. Not as I'd felt the week before or the night before, but actually sick. It felt like I had a gnarly head cold and I felt exhausted. I blew my nose a few times and I felt a bit better, then chalked up the fatigue to the late night at the basketball game. But as the morning went on, I was gripped by sneezing and coughing fits and finally broke out one of those Abbott COVID-19 tests I had at home. I was in the middle of writing Tangle, in addition about the Kentucky tornadoes and the debate over workers' rights, which was never released, when I took the test. This was, probably, something like the 30th COVID test I had taken in

the last two years. As with every single other one, I expected to be reminded that there are other ailments out there than COVID-19. Unlike every other one, though, the second line on that test turned dark pink pretty much immediately. I was positive. Part 2. The Chaos. The way a test like this drops a grenade on your day is tough to explain, but I'll try. For starters, I attempted to do what I'm supposed to do in moments like this. I emailed the cleaning service and told them I received a positive test. They said their cleaners were tested regularly and were okay. I alerted all the people I had seen in the previous few days, the brunch guests, the dinner date, the guys I had played pickup with, and the guys who were in my car massless for that short drive to our backup fields. Then I had to text the friends I had been

with at Madison Square Garden. That's a text that sucks to send. You feel guilty like a leper and as if you're about to ruin all of their days too. Two of those friends had young kids at home. as if you're about to ruin all of their days too. Two of those friends had young kids at home. This is what I wrote. Hey dudes, I have horrible news. I just took a rapid COVID test this morning and it came back positive. Not really sure what to think.

I had taken one Monday because I've just been testing, but it was negative. I started to get a runny nose last night at the game, but thought it was just allergies or something. I took some NyQuil, woke up, and it was still there, so I took a COVID test.

I'm going to get a second rapid test and a PCR at noon. I'd been testing so regularly and thought so little of it that I didn't even peg the testing timeline right. Phoebe, who's got a habit of remembering everything, told me that the rapid test I took was before the weekend, not after it. The friends, being good friends, responded mostly with sympathy and then with questions. Do you have symptoms? Did you get a PCR test? Are you sure it's positive? Yes, I had symptoms, but they weren't your standard COVID-19 symptoms like body ache or fever or skin sensitivity. I just felt like I had a cold. It also felt like I had symptoms last week,

and then I tested negative, and then I had a few days where I felt perfectly healthy. Yes, I was sure this test was showing a positive, but I have no idea if it's a false positive, and no, I didn't have a PCR result, but I was going to get one. Realizing the necessity to figure this out ASAP, and my sickness seeming to get worse by the minute, I drafted a quick note to Tangle readers to let them know I'd be off that day. I took another at-home rapid test, which also came back positive, then I went to the urgent care clinic around the corner with Phoebe. We both took rapid tests there. Mine came back positive, the third consecutive one showing the same result. Phoebe's came back negative. We both took PCR tests, too, which they told us would take about 24 hours to

return. Phoebe's came back negative just two days later, and mine never came back at all as of this writing. The doctor at the clinic gave us the standard spiel you've probably read about in the news. Hydrate, rest, treat your symptoms with Tylenol, perform 10 days of quarantine from symptom onset, and then, if you have no symptoms and a negative test, you can leave quarantine. But when did my symptoms come on? Was it Tuesday night or the weekend before? Or Wednesday morning? I had a break in symptoms. Does that count for something? And what about Christmas? We were going to be leaving to go upstate to celebrate with my wife's family in four days. He suggested we get accustomed to the idea that's not happening. I pushed him. Maybe,

he said. Eight days is okay, but only if you have no symptoms and get a couple negative tests in a row. Entering journalist mode, I asked him about what he was seeing at the clinic. He had been a frontline ICU nurse the whole pandemic, and he responded confidently that something was definitely going on. He said he had seen more positive tests in his tiny little Bushwick urgent care than at any other time since the beginning of the pandemic. It had been about two weeks since I'd written about the Omicron variant, and I wasn't sure if maybe this was the beginning of the outbreak here in the U.S. As we walked home from the urgent care, I basically broke down. Not because I was scared

of the virus, I'm healthy, 30 years old, double vaccinated, boosted, and in pretty good shape, but because of what it meant. Christmas was exactly 10 days away, and we were supposed to be finally getting out of the city and going upstate in a matter of days, this time for a real stress-free holiday break. But with a one-year-old in the family, I knew this meant I'd be kept away until then. It also meant I was about to be locked inside for at least a week, and locked inside alone.

Phoebe was heading into finals week and couldn't afford to get sick, so we were going to quarantine on separate sides of the house. Being who she is, Phoebe generously gave up the TV room and our bed. She took the guest room office, which has a mattress, and we wore masks anytime we were in the kitchen or the bathroom. It was, in a word, awful. Phoebe has been juggling a full-time job, finishing her undergraduate degree, and trying to go to law school for the last year. And with me running Tangle, our time together is limited enough. It has been a long, stressful few months in our house, and this was the light at the end of the tunnel.

With her heading into finals, this was supposed to be the week I stepped up to help out, all with the payoff of a vacation at the other end. Instead, we just had the cord cut. Meanwhile, I had to try and figure out where I'd gotten COVID and who I had infected. Part three, contact tracing. Was it the cleaners? They're in people's homes all the time. One of them had her mask down on her chin at times, and they were in my house for about four hours. I got it, and Phoebe, who was out when they were in, didn't. But the cleaning service says they were testing negative. So what about Trevor and Sam? They both work in restaurants and bars like millions of Americans. They've been at constant risk throughout the pandemic just by virtue of going to work. Trevor heard of some positive cases at work, but only after I tested positive, and all from people he didn't really work directly with.

What about dinner? We were inside a restaurant for four hours, sitting across from two friends. Neither of them were sick or got sick, but even with the vaccine mandate, we know people at a restaurant could have been infected. And what if none of those people had anything to do with it, but I had just been carrying it all weekend? What if my negative test on Thursday was a false negative and the symptoms I had before were actual symptoms? We know the latest COVID-19 variants have an incubation period of about 3-7 days on average. The original COVID-19 incubation period was as long as 2 weeks.

Exactly a week before my symptom onset, I was sitting in a movie theater watching licorice pizza. That would seem like a perfect place to catch COVID-19, except the group of friends I saw that movie with was the same group of friends I went to the basketball game with, and none of them had tested positive for COVID except for me. And then there's the basketball game. By then, it's a sure thing I was spreading the virus. Was the 30 minutes of watching the warm-up with friends enough to infect them? Two would test positive in the next few days, but one of those two had been with a pair of other friends four days before who also both tested positive. So he had two exposures, one to me and one to them. And to

make it even more confounding, he would test positive on a rapid test and then negative on a PCR test. The third friend we sat with during warm-ups escaped without any symptoms or infection at all. Is your head spinning yet? As for the friend I sat with during the game, the one with the four-month-old at home, his symptoms came on a few days later. Classic body ache, chills, etc. But he has continued to test negative on rapid tests and was still waiting for PCR results after three days as of this writing. One of the unlucky friends I sat with during the warm-ups also happened to be Phoebe's brother, Evan. After spending 30 minutes next to him, he spent the rest of the game sitting next to the other friend who had been exposed but did not have symptoms at the game. This was kind of a double whammy, both another threat to our Christmas plans

and generally the most scary scenario as he had our one-year-old niece at home. He continued to test regularly and by Saturday, three days after my positive rapid test and four days after being exposed to me, he had some slight symptoms. Then he took a rapid test that looked like a very faint pink line in the positive column. When I saw it, I told him what I thought. It was positive. That very slight line looked like the onset of a positive test, and given his exposure and slight symptoms, I told him he should act accordingly. A few hours later, he took another test, and this time it looked definitive. Two bright pink lines. This was a clear positive. By now, it was December

this was a clear positive by now it was december 18th three days after i had tested positive the positive test not only forced evan out of his house but also kind of ruined christmas with the 10-day quarantine period taking us to december 28th phoebe's other brother promptly turned around got back on a plane and flew to los angeles before he caught covid or got sick evan went alone to the house where we were supposed to be celebrating Christmas together to isolate from his daughter and went by himself. As this news was breaking in the family group chat, I was sitting on the couch texting Evan and the door to my quarantine family room opened up.

Phoebe, without a mask, walked in and dropped herself on the couch. It was Saturday around noon and I knew what it meant. I'm positive, she said as she wrapped herself in a blanket on the couch she'd was Saturday around noon, and I knew what it meant. I'm positive, she said as she wrapped herself in a blanket on the couch she'd been deprived of for three days, and I feel awful. Part 4. The Damage. As of this writing, here is what we know about my COVID-19 contacts. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Trevor, who I had brunch with on Saturday, tested positive and got hit with a 101 fever and serious body aches. He was fully vaccinated. His girlfriend, Sam, who also came to brunch and who he spent that weekend with, had a few days of symptoms but has continued to test negative. Our friends we went out to dinner with that night are fine. Both are vaccinated, neither are boosted, and neither are

displaying any symptoms or positive tests more than a week later. Two of the four friends I sat with to watch Steph Curry warm up have tested positive since the game. The friend I sat with to watch Steph Curry warm up have tested positive since the game. The friend I sat with for the duration of the game, the one with the four-month-old son, has had classic COVID-19 symptoms but continues to test negative on the rapid test and is still awaiting his PCR results. Phoebe, who was exposed to a symptomatic me when I climbed into our bed Tuesday night and walked around the house sneezing throughout the morning on Wednesday, has gotten quite sick. She got a negative PCR test on the same Wednesday I was testing positive. By Friday night, she was showing symptoms. By Saturday, she had a fever, chills, and body aches. She's now on day four and is completely exhausted, sleeping 12 hours every night

with a painful sore throat, cough, and congestion. She's also had some odd symptoms, like brief but extremely intense fits of nausea that pass after about 90 seconds. To give a small but real-world example of the kind of carnage this virus can cause, consider something like this. Her law school applications are out, but she's in the middle of her finals for her last grades that her schools will receive. She's asked her professors for an extension on the finals because she can barely lift her head, but they cautioned her this would mean her transcripts would be sent to schools with an incomplete grade until she gets her finals in. So they can grant

her the extension, but only with the knowledge she'd be throwing up red flags on her grad school applications. So take your pick. Fight the COVID-19 symptoms and take the finals or risk the schools you applied to getting transcripts with incomplete grades. Evan, her brother, is a maniacal athlete that works out seven days a week. He's the kind of guy who has 12% body fat and knows that he has 12% body fat and has a resting heart rate of 46 and knows that he has a resting heart rate of 46. I asked him how he was doing yesterday and he told me it's the sickest I've ever been. He has both vaccines and was exactly a week out from his booster shot when he tested positive. He has a chest cold, headache, body ache, and he's congested and he can't get his heart rate below 60, the closest thing he'll probably ever have to a serious health problem.

My own symptoms were more mild in comparison. Both Phoebe and I completely lost our appetites, which is especially notable for me as I'm kind of a glutton. I was exhausted for two days and had a relentless running nose and cough that I'm still shaking six days later. There were oddities, too. Some I'm not exactly sure what to make of. For example, a few times in the first couple days, I had these passing body aches, but they came with the very odd sensation that my entire body was really small. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but when I wrapped

myself up as the chill came on, I was struck by this sensation that my limbs and shoulders felt fragile and smaller than ever before. The first time it happened, I thought I was in some kind of half-dream state. The second and third time it happened, I paid close attention to the sensation and tried to memorize it. On day three, my energy came back, and by day four, my symptoms during the day had mostly subsided. Now, six days later, I feel pretty much normal, save a dry throat and stuffy nose and this voice you're hearing right now. By the time Phoebe and Evan had tested positive on December 19th, just three days after I had, the virus was everywhere. tested positive on December 19th, just three days after I had, the virus was everywhere. New York was setting consecutive daily records for new cases, and about 20 of my friends in the city,

most of which I had not had any contact with over the last week or two, had tested positive. That's the most I'd ever known at any point during the pandemic. On Monday, the CDC announced that Omicron is now the most common coronavirus variant in the United States, accounting for nearly 75% of all cases. 298,761 new cases were reported in the U.S. yesterday alone. Part 5. It's all broken. So much of my experience exposed just how bad we still are at handling this virus. For starters, just as everyone I know was exposed to COVID or showing symptoms of it,

testing became nearly impossible. Lines in Brooklyn were hours long, and appointments were hard to find. Walgreens and CVS were out of stock on at-home tests, and even if you tried to order online, they were tough to find. Even worse, the PCR test I got to confirm my three positive rapid tests has still not come back. I've called the clinic twice for it, and each time they told me they were really busy, and they'd call me back with the results. It's now been six days, and there's nothing in my online portal, and no call has been returned. Thank you. testing sites are telling them in advance that the 24-hour return window is now gone, and they should expect the PCR test will take a few days thanks to some delays at the lab. Of course, it's worth noting that this doesn't change much for me. Rapid tests are very good

at telling you if you're contagious and telling you if you're positive when you have symptoms. But PCR tests are, in a way, more sensitive, meaning they are great at telling you if you're positive, but not the best to use in order to test out and ensure you're no longer contagious. Every doctor I've spoken to says PCR tests are still the gold standard, and I know a few people who have gotten false positives on a rapid test only to get confirmed negative from a PCR. But for folks I expose who have no symptoms and wanted to see if they have the virus before traveling home for the holidays, the wait times on the PCR tests have made the actual tests essentially useless. Treating the virus is even more difficult.

My cousin, a doctor, suggested I load up on vitamin C, D, and zinc, which I've been doing. Finding other proven treatments, like monoclonal antibodies, is basically impossible. other proven treatments like monoclonal antibodies is basically impossible. Pfizer and Merck's COVID-19 treatment pills would be perfect for someone like Phoebe who desperately needs to beat the virus quickly, but they are still inaccessible and probably will be for some time. Other popular treatments like ivermectin are not something I'd ever take without a doctor's prescription or suggestion, which I haven't gotten. The advice is still just drink water, use Tylenol, and ride it out. Two years in, the contact tracing we have is also basically non-existent. The clinic where I tested positive did not follow up. They just asked that I report it to my doctor, a primary care physician in Chinatown who has neither the time nor the

interest to do anything with such information besides keep an eye on me. Even if I had the PCR result that I still haven't gotten, it would not tell me which COVID-19 I have, Omicron or Delta or something else, which would actually be pretty helpful in comparing with other infected friends and for my own understanding of what's happening now. For instance, did I get Omicron and Phoebe got Delta? Is that why my symptoms are like a cold and hers are much worse? If I had a different variant than, say, the friends I went to the basketball game with, it could help us figure out where they got the virus and who spread it. Pretty much the only person I think I'm sure I gave it to is the friend I sat next to for the entirety of the basketball game at Madison Square Garden, which

probably means I gave it to the other people sitting around me too, but I have no way of reporting that to MSG or those fans. And since my friend still doesn't have a PCR result and has gotten no positive rapid tests, he just has symptoms, I actually can't even say for certain that he's infected. Meanwhile, the Biden administration just announced they were going to make 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests available for free beginning next month, an announcement we could have used about six weeks ago. It's now been six days since I tested positive. I'm a journalist, and I like to think a conscientious citizen, and I have no idea where I got COVID, who exactly I

gave it to, or what kind of COVID I have. It took me days to get my hands on at-home tests in the most populous city in the U.S., and it required a family member shipping them in from out of town. I'm still waiting for my PCR results, and for someone like Phoebe, who's still really sick four days later, our treatment options are basically take Tylenol and go to the hospital if she has trouble breathing. There were other moments throughout the experience where I felt like what I was doing was simply asinine, even when I was following the rules. At the restaurant, I wear a mask when I walk in and then take it off once I'm seated among dozens of other patrons. At Madison Square Garden, I wore a mask while waiting in line outside until I went through security and showed my vaccine card. Then, once I'm inside among the thousands

of other fans, I get to take it off. When I went to go get tested at the clinic, I sat masked in a waiting room with six or seven other people, all masked too, for 20 minutes to get tested, probably exposing all of the ones who weren't actually sick to my virus. Then, of course, there's the vaccines. I can only imagine that my COVID-19 experience would have been a lot worse had I not been vaccinated, and the same goes for Phoebe. I'm grateful to have them. Of course, I still think everyone should get vaccinated and get boosted, but it's not as if we're doing badly. 85% of American adults have at least one shot, including 95% of those 65 and up. 73% of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, and 88% of adults 65 and up are fully vaccinated. Yet, we're still getting hit by another wave, even while millions of people are getting the booster shot too.

And speaking of the boosters, a lot of people are asking questions there. Anecdotally, many of my friends who got COVID-19 got it within a week or so of their booster shot. When I announced my COVID-19 diagnosis and said that I had gotten my booster shot a few days before, I received a deluge of emails from my readers either sharing similar stories or suggesting that I was scratching at a major conspiracy. Of course, part of this is just an odds game. Thousands of people are getting COVID-19 boosters in New York City, thousands of people are getting boosted every day, and there's bound to be some overlap. Before this outbreak of COVID-19, I wasn't really hearing a lot about people who were getting boosters and then getting the virus a few days later. The boosters are obviously not infecting anyone because, well, science.

That's just not how the vaccines work. or studies suggesting that both the first COVID-19 shot and the booster shot actually suppress the immune system for the first 7 to 14 days before they build an immune response. This kind of writing is particularly tantalizing for a few reasons. One, it matches a lot of my own anecdotal experience as I got sick from the booster and then I got sick from actual COVID just a few days later. Two, it would have major implications for a moment like this. For instance, if thousands of people in New York are responding to this latest surge of Omicron cases by rushing to get their booster shots, and booster shots actually suppress

their immune system for the first week or two, they could be exasperating the spread rather than containing it. Of course, if this were true, it would also mark another colossal turn of knowledge in the pandemic, reminiscent of the initial guidance not to wear masks, or that the virus was spreading on surfaces, or that breakthrough cases were going to be extremely rare. There are some reasons to think it's possible, like for instance the fact that many early studies were measuring immune response two weeks after the first and second dose of the vaccine to understand how well they were working, and perhaps overlooked a critical period in the first week or two after someone gets vaccinated. So, is it possible? Sure, I don't really see why not. We've learned a lot of things throughout the

pandemic, from the odds of a vaccine causing heart issues to the efficacy of masks, and I've no longer got the gall to say what's what. Do I think it's likely? Not particularly, and I certainly don't think a substack author named Elgato Malo writing in all lowercase letters should be an affirmative source on this kind of thing. If it were true, I would think by now we'd have some good data to flesh it out. I sent some of the pieces some of you sent to me to a few friends who are experts in the field, doctors or epidemiologists or whatever. One of them, my doctor cousin, called one of the articles gobble gook and expressed the fear he was getting dumber the more he read it. I also find it unlikely because there are other simpler explanations for

the phenomenon, like for instance the fact people like me who get boosted are probably changing their behavior immediately and thus becoming more reckless, even though they haven't yet had the immune response from the shot that's supposed to come in a couple weeks out. That alone, just that behavioral change, could explain the link between boosters and an increase in cases. Part 6. The End Like every other edition of Tangle, I'm not sharing this story to tell you how to feel or what cautions to take or what to believe. I'm just telling you this story because it's real and it's true and it happened to me and it seems kind of relevant. You can take what you wish. If you really wanted, you could pull at any single thread of my COVID-19 experience and come to whatever preconceived notion you already have. But here's my reflection.

notion you already have. But here's my reflection. COVID-19 sucks. It's just an unpredictable, insidious, awful thing that I feel like has dampened two years of my life that I'll never get back. It has divided us and dumbed us down. It's made people with Wi-Fi connections feel like experts and left experts feeling like they're screaming into the void. It has exposed the flaws of groupthink and institutions and people with cushy government jobs. It has shown us the frightening allure of a heterodox idea even when that idea is obviously wrong. It has, probably, killed or helped kill something on the order of 800,000 Americans and left millions of others with lingering symptoms or jobless or buried in medical debt. And there are more coming now.

It has changed the way we live and injected society with a level of anxiety and fear now that feels familiar rather than absurd. I can remember the way those first few weeks of the pandemic felt and how new that feeling of isolation and anxiety were, but I can no longer remember what it felt like to go out before COVID, what it was like not to have a tiny small voice in the back of your head urging caution at every decision you made or sneeze you heard or stuffy nose you had. It's also true that I wasn't exactly cautious these last few months. In fact, I was probably the opposite of that. Shoot, just look at the week I had before I tested positive. Movies, indoor brunch, indoor dinner, team sports, basketball game at Madison Square Garden, and five days of a shared office space. Plenty of people are going to read this and just think I'm a reckless idiot, and maybe they're right. Plenty of others are going to read this and think there's just no way to avoid this

thing without locking yourself in your room, and maybe they're right too. The hardest part for me has just been the emotional toll. It's been seeing the woman I love the sickest I've ever seen her, and not being able to go grab a bottle of antibiotics to help. It's been seeing the woman I love the sickest I've ever seen her and not being able to go grab a bottle of antibiotics to help. It's been the isolation away from family and friends during the holidays and knowing that's not going to change anytime soon. It's been the frustration, avoiding this virus for two years, being three days out from my third vaccine and still getting sick. It's been the fear, wondering if the symptoms for me or my wife or my friends will stay around for months like they have for so many others or just simply disappear. It's been the fear, wondering if the symptoms for me or my wife or my friends will stay around for months like they have for so many others or just simply disappear. It's been the annoyance, feeling like I'm back in March of 2020, bringing my office home, recording my podcast out of my bedroom closet,

and wondering when I can go back to quote-unquote normal life. All of it is miserable, but that stuff is the worst. And now there's nothing to do but drink water, take some Tylenol, and wait it out. All right, so that's it for my COVID tale, which brings us to just some quick hits before we let you go, since I know you didn't get the normal news today. Number one, Representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard and Stephanie Murphy, Democrats from California and Florida, announced that they won't seek re-election next year, bringing the number of retiring Democrats in Congress to 22 compared to 12 Republicans. Number two, yesterday, former President Donald Trump told an audience that he got his COVID-19 booster shot and insisted his supporters take credit for the vaccine rather than

denigrate it. Number three, President Biden announced that the U.S. is purchasing 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests that Americans will be able to order for free through a federal website. Number four, the January 6th Select House Committee is weighing the possibility of criminal referrals against former President Trump and his allies. Number five, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized tougher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, meaning that by 2026, new cars will be required to achieve as high as 40 miles per gallon. to achieve as high as 40 miles per gallon. All right, that's it for the quick hits, which brings us to our have a nice day section.

A teenage employee at McDonald's became a hero this week in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. 15-year-old Sydney Rowley was working the drive-thru window and had just handed over part of a McDonald's orders to a customer. When she popped back to the window to let her know that the rest of the food was on its way out, she noticed the woman was choking on a chicken nugget. Sydney instructed her manager and the woman's daughter to call 911, then she jumped through the drive-thru window to help the customer. Remembering her Red Cross babysitter training she said she got when she was 11, Sidney performed the Heimlich maneuver on the woman and with the help of another bystander was able to clear her throat. Local police gave Sidney a $100 reward for a good deed when they arrived on the scene and CNN has a link to the story in today's newsletter. All right everybody, that is it for today's podcast as i mentioned at the top i know today

was a little bit different than usual so if this is your first time listening or first time coming across tangle i apologize for the change up but we will be back tomorrow with our regular programming and you can always go to readtangle.com to find our archives or check out past editions all right we will see you guys tomorrow. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo.

The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. We'll see you next time. book. Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.