April 27, 2022
I’m a straight white guy, yet belong to what may be the biggest minority group in the country: those who’ve never been infected with the coronavirus.
According to new data based on tens of thousands of blood samples, almost 60 percent of us have caught Covid at least once. That figure is up from 34 percent in December, prior to the surge triggered by the Omicron variant. It’s also more than twice the official case count. Among children and teens, the infection rate is as high as 75 percent.
It’s conceivable that I had an asymptomatic or mild case, as many people in this new metric apparently did, but with all the precautions I’ve taken it’s not likely. I still wear a mask though lots of folks around me in Atlanta are shedding theirs. I avoid crowds, too. If I were a Washington journalist like I used to be, I wouldn’t go near the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
To me this is just common sense, even if Dr. Fauci is right when he says we’re out of the full-blown pandemic phase. Like our last president’s lies about the 2020 election, the virus keeps mutating, reinventing itself in every corner.
The 60% may not have natural protection against new infections. Over three hundred Americans still die of Covid every day. I don’t intend to join them and hope none of y’all will either. Take care and be safe.
I’m in that club with you! And I, too, continue to pay my membership dues. I drive a School Bus. The other drivers laugh at me for wearing a mask. OK. I’m good with being the butt of the joke.
You’ll have the last laugh.