Nope, no coronavirus here!

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor W ell, I haven’t gotten the coronavirus yet, so I guess all my mask wearing and social distancing has paid off. I was sure I’d get it. It seems like just the sort of thing my body would attract, since I perennially suffer from sinus issues, allergies, and all that stuff. When something is going around, I’m usually one of the ones who get it.

Except the flu. I’ve only had the flu once, and it was terrible.

I was so sure that I would eventually contract COVID-19, I’d already developed a plan for getting my job done in quarantine, but fortunately, that hasn’t happened. I forgot my mask once when I had to run to the store, so I was sure that would be the time I got it. Then, we started going back to church, and even with limited seating and social distancing, I was sure I’d get it then … or at least someone in my family would get it, because if one of us gets it, we’d all get it, and while people seem just fine staying six feet away from me, they can’t resist the urge to hug my wife and daughter.

Speaking of my wife, she has come the closest to the coronavirus as anyone that I know (although there are probably plenty that I don’t know about). Someone she works with tested positive. Luckily, they had only been in very limited contact, but when he called to let her know he had tested positive, she went into freak-out mode. Granted, it was a subdued, calm freak-out but you could see it in her eyes.

You see, there’s never a “good” time to have COVID-19, but if there’s ever a bad time it’s just after one wedding and just before another, especially if the grooms in each wedding are your sons. And that’s just what happened with my wife. Two days after my middle child got married (and we were in attendance with a hundred or so people) was when she got the call. This, of course, is right in the middle of planning my oldest child’s wedding, which is this weekend.

So, naturally, she wanted to get tested. She immediately had me take her up to East Arkansas Famliy Health Center. It was late in the afternoon and they were done doing their drivethrough testing for the day, so we turned back and stopped at Mitchell Family Medicine. Based on her particular circumstances (it had been five days since she had been in contact with her co-worker, she was not showing any symptoms, etc.) they would not test her Determined to get tested that day, she drove herself to Forrest City and got tested at the Health Department. I was not there for the actual test, but she said that they actually had her administer the test herself. She’s a braver person than I am, because I’m not sticking anything up my nose myself as far as she had to stick the testing swab. She said it was bad enough to bleed and give her a headache.

I do not need to know that bad.

It was a couple of tense days but the results eventually came back negative. I honestly don’t know what the plan would have been had she been positive. The 100-plus folks at the first wedding would have all been potentially exposed (she had helped to cut the cake after all). The upcoming wedding (which will feature dozens of the same people) would definitely have been in jeopardy. So, potential nightmare averted.

Again, I am just super surprised I haven’t gotten it. I’m just prone to medical mayhem it seems (ask me about my spider-bite scars). I’m actually wondering if I have already had it. Back in February or early March I has a one-day fever-andchills episode and was going to go to the doctor the next day, but then I felt fine.

We’ve all got COVID-19 fatigue at this point. And from what I’ve seen, pandemic or no pandemic, people are largely done with all the guidelines. They’re like the young lady I overheard at my son’s wedding who I heard being “so over” the coronavirus.

“I wish I would just go ahead and get it, so I could stop worrying about it,” she told another guest.

And I think that’s where we are. We’ve been inconvenienced long enough, and here in Arkansas, the top officials are just sort of shrugging their shoulders as the state opens up more and more while numbers of positive cases (and deaths) continue to climb.

I think we’re doing too much too fast, but personally, we just need to get through this second wedding, and then you guys can do what you want.

And that’s probably when I’ll get the coronavirus …