Fist Event Jitters: Full Planes, Sniffles and Do I Have Covid?

On Tuesday – five days after returning from a four day maskless event where I flew on full planes and navigated jammed airports – I popped open the free US government Covid-19 test kit, did the nasal swab, waited 15 minutes and…negative.

I did not have Covid.

But I do have sniffles and a cough which is what prompted the test.

I did have Covid two years ago and mainly I remember a high fever. This time I did not have a fever and, yes, along the way I had bought an instant read thermometer which I put away maybe six months ago when I got boosted but you betcha, I dug that out of a drawer not long after getting home.

What is wrong with me?

Call it two years of fretting about Covid-19.

Probably I have a minor, run of the mill cold or cough.

But here’s the deal: Travel brings out our inner Covid worries.

How could it not?

Yes. I traveled to Spain early fall but that was a different time, different rules. Only vaccinated Americans could gain entry to Spain. Planes were half full. Mask compliance everywhere was high. Even outdoors in small towns in northern Spain.

On this February trip, mask compliance in airports – and they were full – was high. But the airports were stuffed.

Side note: at Sky Harbor in Phoenix there was a very long TSA Pre line, probably 50 of us. There was nobody in the adjacent Clear line, except for three or four Clear employees. I found myself wondering if I should get free Clear with my Amex Plat card. I had decided it was unnecessary. Maybe it’s time for a rethink?

On the planes, there also was high – probably universal – mask compliance. There certainly were no incidents. The American Airlines flight crew seemed amiable, relaxed. Sure, we all see the many stories about drunken anti mask nutters – even nuttier Senators who oppose a shared Do Not Fly list – but there were no signs of disruption on my flights. In fact they were on time, hassle free, nothing to complain about.

At the event I attended – a gathering of maybe three dozen credit union executives and fintech entrepreneurs – there was no wearing of masks. But the room was spacious, there was distance in seating, and if I had to guess I’d say the overwhelming majority of attendees were like me, fully vaccinated and boosted.

Offsite dinners in crowded restaurants set off small alarm bells in my brain. Do these people look boosted? What does a boosted person look like, exactly? And of course between munching food and swilling wine there’s no mask wearing anyway. File restaurant dining as a risk in my mind. But you gotta eat. So….

Taxis to/from the event hotel: Masked drivers, no worries on my part.

Lightrail to/from Sky Harbor in Phoenix where I live: full cars, SRO, but good mask compliance. Not ideal but no loud warning buzzers in my head.

So why did I become concerned about my health pretty much as soon as I returned home? Know that I have zero history of hypochondria.

For one, I did have a sniffle and a minor cough. And you know what? I recorded a conversation I had at the event with two experts and both had sniffles. I know because I heard it on the tape as I did an edit before publishing (of course I took out the sniffles).

But these were rather clearly oldfashioned trivial cold sniffles.

And yet my mind dove deep into Covid worries.

My guess is that most of us will be doing this for some months to come. Years? I hope not. But I will say that for as long as I have flown a lot, I have accepted that once or twice every winter I would get a cold and it would be no big deal, it wouldn’t even cost me any lost work days. A box of OTC cold medicine, maybe a bag of lozenges, some Kleenex and I was geared up for the season.

Fortunately, as my mind meandered through its Covid worries, I remembered that I had a box of CVS cold/cough meds, some Ricola, and some tissues. Cold handled.

The other big takeway from this trip for me is that suddenly I found myself having to remember how to travel. What do I need to take out of my pockets at the TSA check (basically everything). where’s my boarding pass (in the app of course). how much time before boarding do I need to arrive at the airport? Suddenly things that I did on auto pilot required thought.

It was as though I were 24 again and starting a life that would involve significant travel – but at 24 I had been on a plane exactly twice before and had never checked myself into a hotel. It was all new, different.

And so it is again now.