Day #349 Writing Through COVID-19: What probably isn't COVID

This evening Dan said his throat is a bit sore. 

I whisked the temple-thermometer off its prominent place at the kitchen desk and recorded his temperature: 99.4.

Next, we Googled temperature as COVID indicator and learned that contrary to Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit, 98.6 is only a "very crude estimate" when determining a fever.

"Fever" is, in fact, considered to be 2 degrees above whatever your own personal baseline is (which in Dan's case, and in mine, is not known).

Dan said he'd had a long day outside in the wind. Can wind cause fever? 
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In pre-COVID days, my husband would not have mentioned the hint of a sore throat. One of us would need to be bathed in sweat and nearing convulsions before the other would start hunting for a thermometer. If we were lucky enough to find one, it would not have functioned.

But COVID has its own set of rules. 

A scratch in the throat, a drip of the nose, the itch of a cough: high alert! 

Dan thought back to his proximity to others yesterday at church. He realized that when he'd helped our neighbor with a truck problem today, neither had worn a mask. 
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Despite (or because of) his early COVID scare last June, Dan has been named our family's "head of the snake." He seems to be the weakest link in our chain of COVID precaution. Time and again he forgets his mask, or ends up shaking someone's hand, or (afterwards) realizes he hadn't distanced himself. 

That said, he has come a long way from his early days of the pandemic, when I had to beg him to wear the mask he abhorred.

I get it. Masks are uncomfortable and eye-glass fogging. And in the early days, their use seemed to broadcast fear and/or rigidity. Had it not been for my insistent daughter in Spain begging us all to take the damn pandemic seriously, I might not have been a mask "early adapter" myself.
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I am 2.5 weeks past my first COVID vaccine, so I feel pretty safe against the virus even if Dan has brought it into this house. 

Tonight, using nothing but my unscientific intuition, I'll guess Dan's COVID  probability at 20%. 

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison