Wednesday, November 18, 2020, dawned like any other day of my week. Little did I know when I headed to the gym that morning, 2020 was about to pull its latest dirty trick on me.

I finished my treadmill time at the gym a little before 8:00, ran a couple of errands on my way back to the house, and spent a bit over an hour in the yard taking care of “honey-dos.” By 10:30, I’d logged around 9,000 steps, ten flights of stairs, and filled a yard cart with the debris from several large seasonal plants. Then, the real work started.

I am playing catch up on my Bible Study videos and my writing. I managed to complete one lesson on the Book of John and proofread a couple of chapters in my most ambitious writing project to date. Then, the phone rang, and my world came to a screeching halt.

I was one of the 2,112 people Tarrant County, Texas, reported as testing positive for COVID-19 that morning. My positive test was part of a pre-op procedure before minor surgery. I exhibited no virus-related symptoms and still have no symptoms. Also, I did not feel any different that morning than any morning this year. Yet, my life, and the lives of those around me, were disrupted significantly.

Of course, our doctor tested my wife. Bingo! She was positive as well and has no symptoms. Still, the ripples kept spreading. A good friend and colleague from church had to be tested because of my results. His results were negative, thankfully. My daughter had to close her restaurant for at least one day while her staff submitted to tests. If anyone on her team tests positive, that may be the end of her restaurant. The county will likely close her down, and she may not have the resources to reopen due to previous county-wide shutdowns.

Of course, all the friends and close associates with whom I had contact in the last several weeks are concerned for their safety. I had to notify my gym to be safe, and I am essentially under house arrest for the next ten days, depending on who one asks. For instance, my gym said don’t come back for two weeks without a negative test, and one nurse said three weeks quarantine. I’ll go with the CDC guidelines of ten days.

I am not sharing this as just my tale of woe. Yes, it is a mild pain in you know where, but others have it a lot worse. My problem and I am not a conspiracy theory junkie, is this. There is something rotten in Denmark, or in this case, D. C. Either that or the medical profession is less competent than most of us would care to believe.

I do not claim incompetence lightly. I do want to qualify the charge, however. I know a lot of doctors socially. I have several doctors I respect and trust with my health. Unfortunately, they are no longer free to practice medicine as they would like. Instead, they must follow the guidelines established by insurance companies, research facilities, and bureaucrats with M.D.s. The COVID mess is just the latest example of external interference with a doctor’s ability to practice medicine.

There is apparently no empirical data justifying the guidelines for quarantining asymptomatic COVID patients. The publicly available literature concerning procedures and protocols for dealing with asymptomatic positives makes it clear labeling a person without symptoms a danger is simply a CYA activity.

I say this is a CYA activity for several reasons. First, as suggested above, the majority of the evidence concerning this topic is anecdotal. Using this anecdotal data, the “experts” originally estimated 60 percent of new infections came from symptomatic patients and 40 percent from asymptomatic patients.

Now, the infamous Dr. Fauci is quoted as saying that 50 percent of the new cases may come from people like me, asymptomatic positives. It seemed he and others are basing this on more anecdotal evidence. One case cited is an individual tested for 70 days. She continued to test positive during that time, even though she never developed any virus related symptoms. Their reasoning concerning how she could be the modern equivalent of a “Typhoid Mary” made absolutely no sense, at least as reported by the publication in which I found it.

The “experts” believe her immune system was too weak to destroy the virus. On the other hand, it was strong enough to thwart the virus, as she never succumbed to the little suckers. Oh! By the way, she is a high-risk patient due to her age and medical history. Still, she managed to live through a total of 105 days, according to the report, of infection without becoming sick from the virus. She, like me, was tested because she was going into the hospital for a non-virus condition.

The bottom line for all us “non-experts” is this. The experts are guessing, and they change their best guesses more often than a mother with a newborn changes diapers. Yet, we ignore their guesses at our and our loved one’s peril.

I will wear a mask in public. I will wash my hands like a raccoon with a bushel of shelled pecans* and carry a six-foot pole to keep you safe from the possibility I am infected. I will also be one of the first people in line when the vaccine becomes available.

There! I’ve ranted enough for today. I may have more to say if the wind shifts the direction of the hot air from Dr. Fauci and other medical blowhards. Until then, sayonara.

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*Okay, raccoons do not wash their food, apparently they can sense their food through their paws, and wetting it makes food easier to sense. Still, if you ever watched one eat around water, it looks as if they are washing every bite.

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