Just as the Pandemic seems to ending with a bang, so my personal COVID story ended dramatically. But first, the case update for this week.

The US, California, and San Diego County are all well past the peak of Omicron cases, and cases are dropping rapidly. In some Northeastern states like New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, the Omicron wave is already nearly over.

According to the CDCs variant proportion site, Omicron is now 99.9% of new cases. I will not report on this again, since this has now become uninteresting. There have been reports of a new subcategory of Omicron, BA.2, which is even more infectious than Omicron, but just as mild.

The end of my COVID story: I tested Positive for COVID on Friday the 14th, and finally tested Negative this Thursday morning, the 27th, almost exactly 2 weeks later. COVID actually got worse for me during course of the 2 weeks, with me getting more fatigued as time passed. Thursday night and yesterday were particularly bad, with extreme fatigue, sleeplessness, dehydration, uncontrollable shaking, and finally mental incoherence on Thursday night and Friday. Finally last night I was able to sleep for 11 hours and I finally feel like I’m recovering. I ate a full breakfast this morning and am actually doing some chores around the house.

I really only have 1 co-morbidity, celiac disease, an auto-immune disease. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen research on how auto-immune diseases interact with COVID or vaccination. It may be safe to assume for now that my auto-immune disease put me at greater risk from an immune system intensive disorder, but I don’t know for sure. While most of my COVID symptoms were indeed very mild, I was very surprised by the severity of my fatigue, which had multiple other negative effects. I sought medical attention twice, but they were never nearly as concerned as I was.

The “Final” Verdict on Antibody Dependent Enhancement: As most of you know, ADE has been a major concern of mine from almost the beginning. I’m finally willing to give an assessment of how ADE impacted the pandemic. There were a smattering of cases in previously infected people who may have had more severe cases because of possible ADE, but not more than a smattering. It’s also becoming well acknowledged that Omicron infected everyone regardless of vaccination status and may have even preferentially infected vaccinated people. I know MANY people who are double vaxxed and boosted who got Omicron.

All that being said, I never saw any evidence that conclusively suggested that ADE was causing more severe symptoms because of natural or vaccine mediated immunity. In fact, even during Omicron, during which ADE was most likely to be operating, those with previous immunity clearly fared better than those without. Because I think Omicron is the death rattle of the pandemic, I’m willing to say that ADE never became the threat I was concerned about. For this reason, IF I didn’t already have natural immunity because of Omicron, I might actually get vaccinated IF I could find someone who would aspirate before injecting!

I never saw any paper that dealt with the issue of ADE, not even a little. Those that mentioned it did so only in passing.

Don’t go looking for Omicron: Lastly, I’ll just say that while most of my friends had an undramatic time with Omicron, I did not. If you haven’t gotten Omicron yet, don’t go out looking for natural immunity from an Omicron infection. For me, it was no fun at all, and not worth the lost time and anxiety, even though I’m glad to now have hard earned natural immunity. The vaccines may not actually help you against Omicron infection, but they do seem to help you have an easier time of Omicron. Also, if you haven’t gotten Omicron yet, I recommend taking precautions and wearing an N95, KN95, or KF94 when in public.

Precautions against Delta are not adequate for Omicron, so kick it up another notch if you haven’t had Omicron yet.

Don’t fear, but be smart,
Erik