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I have a lot of feelings about my experience with COVID that are impossible to properly articulate, but I'm going to try nevertheless.
I've spent over a year living in debilitating fear of my family getting sick. At the end of March, my worst fears came true.
I've spent over a year living in debilitating fear of my family getting sick. At the end of March, my worst fears came true.
My great-grandmother, grandfather, and I were all fully inoculated with the Moderna vaccine by mid-March. My husband received a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on March 22nd, and my sister and her partner received their final dose of the Pfizer vaccine on March 31st.
My husband was the first person who started to exhibit symptoms --he received his diagnosis the day before he would have been considered fully inoculated. Without full immunity it was unsurprising he tested positive. My daughter was also symptomatic so she and I were both tested.
My daughter who was was too young to be vaccinated (13), tested positive. I know that no vaccine is 100% effective at preventing illness, but before being tested I was asymptomatic and I felt very confident that I did not have COVID. I tested positive.
Once my test result came back abnormal (positive), I began to panic about the rest of my family, and over the next few days, all eight of us tested positive. My entire household had COVID. 3 breakthrough cases, 3 cases post-vaccination/pre-full inoculation, &2 cases unvaccinated.
It seemed improbable to impossible that we all got sick, and yet we did. I still have no clear answer as to why, but I speculate that whatever variant we were exposed to was more contagious and/or better at resisting the vaccine.
Simultaneously, B.1.617 COVID (commonly referred to as "double mutant" COVID) was detected in the Bay Area. This is the same variant that is devastating India and spreading quickly in other countries as well. Before elaborating further I want to make one thing unambiguously clear
I have no doubt that being vaccinated kept the highest risk members of my household, my 95-year-old great-grandmother with COPD, and my 81-year-old grandfather with asthma from severe symptoms and being hospitalized or ending up in the ICU.
We were also blessed that my father, an FNP (family nurse practitioner), came down to monitor our vitals, monitor our symptoms, run errands so we could quarantine comfortably and help take care of us. @GigWC also sent care packages with soups, medicine, and even coloring books <3
Despite living in fear for over a year, nothing could prepare me for the emotional impact of actually getting COVID. The endless speculation about how/why it happened, what could conceivably go wrong or become catastrophic, an experience that millions of folks globally have had.
It was quite literally traumatizing. My grandmother, who is 76 and was not vaccinated is still suffering from complications and still not recovered. While she likely is beyond the period of dying from COVID, I have no idea how long she will be dealing with complications/symptoms.
The broader issue my experience raised was one of global equity in vaccine distribution. If vaccines continue to be distributed along lines of privilege the virus will continue to mutate in ways that make it more dangerous and resistant to current vaccines.
Viruses don't recognize borders, citizenship, national identity. This is a global pandemic that requires global solutions. As the virus continues to run rampant, continues to mutate, it makes our immunity/inoculation less effective, the virus becomes deadlier and more contagious.
This is all to say, get vaccinated, help others get vaccinated, listen to medical professionals and infectious disease specialists over bosses, politicians, and CEOs that are eager to "return to normal." Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should*.
Keep getting vaccinated whenever possible, keep social distancing, keep wearing masks and demanding that others wear theirs, keep up pandemic hygiene practices, keep staying home whenever possible. Stay conscientious, stay safe, stay looking out for others. 
