So – I did something stupid. Incredibly stupid.
I used the words “Covid positive” in my original post about my ALA Conference attendance.
Someone found this post just before I got on a plane to go home from San Diego. They had seen me at the conference – after I had tested negative – and because I wasn’t wearing a mask outside in the wind after I tested negative – they concluded that I had attended the conference giving people Covid willy-nilly.
Because I’d posted this picture (again, outside in the wind) from Day 2, they concluded that I’d completely lied that I’d ever worn a mask at the conference.
Before I say anything else, let me mention that none of these people in this picture – my fellow Morris committee members and the main people I talked with the first two days of the conference – got Covid from me, as they have reported two weeks after the conference.
By the time I got off my plane, Twitter was in a frenzy about me going to the conference and spreading Covid. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said about the precautions I took and the medical advice I got. I stayed off Twitter for a week and shut off notifications, because being a target of all that hatred and loathing was more than I could take.
My plan was to not post about the rest of the conference, because after I was Covid negative, I started meeting authors and taking pictures with them – but those folks will never believe it.
However, after the furor died down, I remembered that I *like* to post about the conferences I attend. It helps me make the most of what I learned and remember the wonderful people I interact with. So I’m going to post about the last two days of the conference – when I was Covid negative – and refer to this post if anyone objects.
And I figure my own blog is my chance to give the full story – which chance I did not get on Twitter. If people don’t believe me, I feel sorry for them keeping all that hatred and contempt in their hearts. I have been thankful that those who actually know me have backed me up when I discussed the situation with them.
Here’s how it started: I’ve caught Covid two times, and both times it was on a long plane flight with one stop. This time, thank goodness, it was on the way back from Germany instead of on the way there.
But the flight was only a week before ALA Annual Conference in San Diego.
So I assumed I wouldn’t be able to go, and I emailed my fellow Morris committee members. They answered to not give up yet. I made a virtual appointment with a doctor to talk about Paxlovid, which she prescribed. I asked her what she thought about whether I could go to the conference, and she repeated the current CDC guidelines that if my fever is gone for 24 hours and my symptoms are going away, I can carry on normal activities, wearing a mask. I told my friends I might be able to go, and they cheered for me.
I never had much of a fever – 99.5 at the highest. But I took Paxlovid and felt better quickly. By Wednesday afternoon, it was back to my normal of 97.4, and my symptoms had left. All day Thursday that kept up (and all through the conference, too – I brought my thermometer on the trip) and I felt fine on Thursday and spent the day packing my bags to go.
Now, my sister lives near San Diego, and we made a deal that I would only come to see her after I was Covid negative. Because passing people in a convention center or sitting next to someone wearing a mask is a lot less contact than staying in someone’s house, so we decided a stricter standard would apply. So I did bring tests, and I was negative by Sunday and went to her house Monday night – and it was after I was negative that I started meeting authors and taking pictures with them.
So, yes, I was still positive when I arrived at the conference on Friday. But I was very aware of that. And presumably after your fever and symptoms have left, you’re shedding a lot less virus. When my Morris committee friends came up to me at the Printz awards, I stood at a distance and kept my mask on to talk with them. Then Saturday when I saw them at a reception on a boat, we talked outside in the wind. Even if I were at the very beginning of the illness and shedding lots of virus, I fail to see how that virus could have transmitted to someone else in the wind on that boat.
And that’s the thing. There are some on Twitter who believe that I was responsible for every case of Covid that someone caught at ALA Annual Conference. But thousands of people arrived at that conference after taking a plane trip. Who is more contagious? The person with no remaining symptoms who’s wearing a mask, or the person who caught Covid on the plane trip to the conference but doesn’t know it yet and isn’t wearing a mask?
Now, when the Twitter furor erupted, I was paranoid I’d find out my committee friends had caught it from me. But time has passed, and the people I actually talked with and spent the most time with those first two days did not catch it from me. My family that I saw later that week did not catch it from me. I can’t bring myself to believe that I filled any of those convention center rooms up with virus and infected people I didn’t even talk with.
Though if you really want me to be your scapegoat, if you won’t believe me that I took precautions, and that I think those precautions were effective – there’s not really anything I can do about that. I now have new sympathy for teens who get bullied on social media, and I’m going to try to stay out of any social media shaming in the future.
So – that’s what happened. I followed CDC guidelines and went about my normal activities, wearing a mask, when my symptoms and fever were gone for more than 24 hours. After a swab up my nose didn’t even detect any virus, I no longer worried that I might accidentally infect someone.
Now I’m going to write up the rest of the conference without mentioning Covid, but this is my explanation if someone has an issue with what they see.