I did everything wrong and still haven’t caught Covid

“I am vaccinated — two Moderna shots, then boosted with a Pfizer booster,” Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera said as he announced he tested positive for Covid two weeks ago. “I thought for sure that I was immune…I ate some humble pie.”

The View’s Whoopi Goldberg expressed similar surprise when she caught the virus, saying, “It was a shock, because I’m triple vaxxed, I haven’t been anywhere, I haven’t done anything.”

“It’s one of those things where you think, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do… Yeah, it doesn’t stop Omicron,” she added.

There have been scores of high-profile people admitting over the past month that you can “do everything right” and still catch Covid-19. That same crowd used to mock and condescend to those who got the virus as if it was indicative of some kind of moral failing. Now they suddenly want to move to the endemic phase of the pandemic, glossing over the fact that the public health measures they obsessively encouraged over the past two years couldn’t save them.

My Spectator colleague Karol Markowicz has suggested that catching Covid appears to be more about luck than any strict adherence to CDC guidelines.

“So many ‘I did everything right but still got Covid’ pieces. I’m ready for some ‘I did everything wrong and never got Covid’ one,” she tweeted recently.

Well, here’s my story.

By the summer of 2020, I was attending family gatherings, hosting get-togethers and going to housewarming parties where friends chanted “fuck Fauci.” I went to weddings, got my hair cut, had drinks with friends, traveled to the beach and booked a massage.

In the fall, I went to weekly trivia nights at the local bar with a team of ten people, attended physical therapy sessions after an accident, went out to dinner multiple times in downtown DC, spoke at conferences, got my nails done and went to a crowded Halloween party where a couple of people caught Covid.

In the winter, I went to political rallies, Christmas parties, yoga class, personal training, and CPAC in Orlando. I was required to get a Covid test after CPAC to attend another conference. I tested negative.

The spring of 2021, I went on dates, attended a huge St. Patrick’s Day party, met colleagues for lunch, golfed non-stop and took a work trip to Miami to interview Governor Ron DeSantis. After my dad passed away this summer, we held a large public memorial for him at the local fire hall.

I got sick twice in the past two years. I tested negative for Covid both times.

During those two years, I avoided wearing a mask unless explicitly asked to by a service worker. I didn’t follow the little stickers on grocery store or restaurant floors for “social distancing.” I was required to get the vaccine for professional reasons, so I got one dose of the Johnson & Johnson because it is the least effective and I was worried about the mRNA vaccine effects on female fertility.

A friend of mine worked out of my apartment this past fall for about four hours and tested positive for Covid the next day. I ate Christmas dinner next to a Covid-positive family member because we didn’t want them to feel alone over the holiday. I took shots at the bar and played pool with a sick coworker who would later test positive. I drove my boyfriend to the testing center when he came down with chills and a fever, and he tested positive. My radio co-host tested positive two days after I was in the studio with him. I have had no symptoms and tested negative on the two rapid tests I was able to get ahold of.

Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to catch this damn virus.

Haters will call me selfish. They will accuse me of unknowingly spreading the virus across the DMV. The truth is that it’s highly unlikely I would spread the virus asymptomatically to a stranger in passing. I was more cautious ahead of the times I would see my grandparents, who are vaccinated and boosted to lower the risk of a severe infection. But it’s also important to remember that they are adults and should have a choice, too. Who am I to tell them that they don’t get to come to what could be one of their last Thanksgivings?

I recognize that by even writing this I am all but guaranteeing that I do catch Covid in the next week or two. I have accepted that I will get it eventually. While getting sick is an inconvenience, I am not scared of catching Covid. I am twenty-seven years old, do not have any comorbidities, eat relatively healthily and exercise several times a week. My risk of becoming severely ill or dying from the virus is very low. Statistically, I have a better chance of getting hit by a car — in my case this is especially true because I actually did get hit by a car during the pandemic.

Of course, anything could happen. We accept all kinds of risk every single day merely by living our lives. I decided early on that Covid was a risk I was willing to tolerate over putting my entire life on hold for two years. I couldn’t be happier with my decision.