There was a time not too long ago, less than three years really, when very few people gave a crap about what was making them slightly sick. Your immune system works because you’re a little bit sick all the time. Your body is constantly exposed to new threats, and while you’re going about your day, your blood goes all ninja and kicks the ass of whatever is attacking you. While miraculous, it’s no big deal.
It used to be that if you weren’t feeling well, someone might ask you what was wrong. And you’d say, “I’ve got the sniffles”, or, “I caught a bug”, or maybe, “meh, it’s just a virus”. You didn’t care what bug. Because knowing which specific virus you had wasn’t going to change your behavior even a little bit.
You’d still go to work if you felt well enough or even if you didn’t feel well enough but happened to be saving your sick days to supplement your vacation days.
The point is, people used to know not to sweat the small stuff. And a virus, specifically the type that doesn’t make you particularly sick, is very small stuff.
But not these days. These days, many people will sneeze and then run right out and get tested for COVID. There’s no more “it’s just a virus”. People want to know specifically what kind of virus they have. As if that’s going to make any difference.
I’ve been feeling a little under the weather for the past week. It was nothing real debilitating, I was just feeling a little run down, with the sniffles and sore throat. I’ve had similar symptoms many times before. Nothing to worry about. So, I didn’t.
Now, we all know that pretty much every symptom imaginable is a possible symptom of COVID. At least that’s what we’ve been told. OK. Maybe losing your sense of taste could legitimately be blamed on COVID, but surely the sniffles, a sore throat, general tiredness, or decapitation could have other causes.
So, having a good head still firmly attached to my shoulders, I didn’t get real worked up about not feeling well for a few days. Because it happens all the time. To everyone. Not once did I even consider taking a COVID test. The thought never crossed my mind. I get sick. Then I get better. Wash, rinse, repeat. I’ve been doing that successfully for over 60 years.
We also all know that whether or not you’re vacksinated has nothing to with whether or not you’re going to catch COVID. And it has no impact on whether or not you’re contagious to others. Joe Biden has tested positive twice in the past week. He, and practically his entire virtue-signaling Administration are multi-vacksed and masked. What’s more, he presumably has the best medical care on earth. If there were anyone who would be safe, it would be Joe Biden.
If vackseens and masks have no influence on the probability of your COVID test being positive, what does?
I can tell you exactly what impacts whether or not you test positive for COVID. At least in California. It’s the number of times you’ve already tested positive for COVID. But it’s not what you might think. Your body isn’t building an immunity against COVID. What’s happening is that the more times you test positive for COVID, the less financial benefit there is for you to test positive.
I was talking to someone at work yesterday. He mentioned that one of the managers was going to be out for a week because he has COVID. I asked him why it would matter. Everyone works from home. There’s no reason to not work.
But here in California, you don’t have to burn up any of your sick days if you can prove that you’ve been exposed to COVID. You can test positive for COVID on two different occasions and get paid by the taxpayers for up to a week at a time. You don’t even have to be sick. All that’s required is that you test positive.
Two weeks of paid time off is a good deal. If I wasn’t cursed with my midwestern work ethic and, you know, was a pussy, I’d probably run out and test after every sniffle so I could have someone pay me to stay home. Which I was going to do anyway.
I’d bet cash money that if someone were to track it, they’d discover that COVID infections in California magically drop to zero for those people who have already used up their taxpayer-paid COVID vacations. Well, that’s not entirely correct, I’d bet what happens is that these people simply stop taking COVID tests. And if you’re not looking for COVID, you’re not going to find COVID.
And it’s not just in California. Governments everywhere incentivize people to test positive for COVID. So that’s what happens. When the incentive runs out, poof! No more COVID.
CNBC published an article this week that said how a large number of people who have COVID-like symptoms, and take an in-home COVID test, are seeing negative test results. Now, you and I know that there’s probably a very simple explanation of why a COVID test is negative.
But the article never mentioned the likely reason. The reasons they gave included a constantly-mutating virus, low-quality test kits, improperly handling of the samples or the possibility that some people are too stupid to properly read the results.
Their suggested course of action was that you should take multiple tests over the course of a few days because, eventually you may end up with a positive test.
Notice I said COVID-like symptoms. Every single COVID symptom is also a symptom of something else. Not once did the article mention that maybe, just maybe, the reason people keep testing negative for COVID is because they don’t fucking have COVID.
Another recent article claimed that even those who have so far not been infected with COVID will likely be infected by one of the new variants.
First of all, big deal. The only people who care are those of us who have been turned into hypochondriacs, too scared to trust their immune system to handle things like it has their entire life. Secondly, I’m never going to know if I do catch one of these new-but-benign COVID strains. Because I’m not going to be tested.
I’m not saying that people don’t get sick from COVID, but I am saying that it doesn’t happen very often. I know thousands of people, but I don’t know anyone who has been anything more than a little inconvenienced by a COVID infection. There are clearly people who have, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as we’re expected to believe.
“Experts” say that the new variants are much more contagious than previous ones. At least there’re pretty sure that’s the case. They don’t know for certain. Because, according to them, it’s impossible to know for sure how many people have caught one of these new variants since most people are “asymptomatic”. Which means they have no symptoms, so they don’t get tested.
Less than three years ago, hardly anyone had even heard of the word “asymptomatic”. Instead, we had another way to describe people with no symptoms of anything. We just called them “healthy”.
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