Omicron Fever — I've Got It!

I really want to catch the omicron variant, and the sooner the better.

To start off with, I’m one of the lucky 99% in my age group — I’m 52 — with little reason to fear any strain of the COVID-19 coronavirus. It’s a real privilege to be part of such a select few, but when it came time to get vaccinated, I did it, anyway.

Disclaimer: I’m an opinion writer, not a doctor. This column is not meant to be taken as medical advice. This serves only to present my own viewpoint and the history and thought process behind it. As always, make up your own mind. On everything.

Partly, I wanted to reduce as much as possible the risk of contagion to my in-laws. They’re both older, and my mother-in-law — whom I adore — by herself must be in half-a-dozen different risk groups.

So for their sake, I was more than willing to take a small chance.

But the other part, maybe even the major factor in my decision, was that I didn’t want to risk losing my sense of smell and taste for weeks or months. As Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ know, I love my food and I love my drink. Aside from my family and friends, food and drink are my two great pleasures in life.

And given that my wife and I are always sharing food and drink with our family and friends, you could say that they’re all a part of one big, inseparable package.

If there’s a bug out there that has even a small chance of taking all that away, I’d do — and in fact, did — most anything to avoid it or at least mitigate its symptoms.

So I got jabbed, twice. I did “endure” one side effect. The first shot made my upper arm ache slightly more than a regular flu shot, and maybe for slightly longer. The second shot didn’t even do that much.

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But this omicron variant? Bring it on, baby!

As I reported yesterday:

“Mild” is the same word used by Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who was one of the first to identify the [omicron] variant. People she treated with omicron had symptoms “so different and so mild from those I had treated before,” she said.

Virtually all of Netcare’s patients “presented with mild to moderate flu-like symptoms, including a blocked or runny nose, headache and a scratchy or sore throat.”

“Take a NyQuil and don’t bother calling me in the morning,” is pretty much what my doctor would tell me to do with those symptoms, provided they didn’t get any worse.

Assuming I’d even go see my doctor for such mild symptoms, which I’ve never once done before.

None of the omicron patients Coetzee treated lost their sense of smell or taste, either.

So I’d like to catch the omicron variant, and I’d like to catch it as soon as possible — just to get the brief flu-like misery over before Christmas, New Year’s, and my older son’s birthday.

How many times have you had a mild flu? Enough times that it’s no big deal, right? Maybe you don’t even miss work for it. The last time I got really sick, well over a year ago, I got by on a rotating schedule of DayQuil/DayQuil/NyQuil — and otherwise didn’t think much of it.

The best part? That Israeli study showing that a combination of natural immunity plus vaccination is the best protection against some nastier variant.

I already got the shots. Now science is telling me I can add natural immunity without risking my cherished indulgence in food and drink?

Bring. It. On.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so desperate to catch omicron that I’m going to start licking doorknobs in Wuhan or eating all my lunches at the local Bat on a Stick.

I am, however, even more done than ever with taking any more stupid and useless precautions.

Not only is this omicron variant no worse than a mild flu, but it’s even more contagious. If you thought delta was contagious, omicron has almost totally shoved it aside in South Africa already.

It’s just like I’ve been writing here for a long while now: Everybody is going to get COVID.

Everybody.

So if there’s a new variant that the worst it can do to a healthy person like me is a few days of not-so-bad flu, that’s the variant I want.

I’ve got omicron fever, baby — now I just need the omicron itself.

And when I do get it, you can bet I’m going to feed that cold with ribeye and douse that fever with 15-year-old scotch.