Dreadful COVID ordeal is a potent reminder to stay vigilant

Don't let your guard down.

Although veteran L.A. Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke had for months vigilantly "abandoned" any group settings where the new coronavirus flourishes, he acknowledged recently letting his guard down. And COVID-19 hit him hard. In his first column in almost two weeks, Plaschke said he dined out with friends in a couple of lawful, socially-distanced outdoor environments — where the masks inevitably came off. Plaschke thinks he got infected there.

Though the now-recovering journalist wasn't hospitalized, Plaschke wrote his piece to share that even a healthy person without a heightened vulnerability (like older age or health conditions) can get pummeled by a disease that presently has no proven cure nor a vaccine.

The microbial parasite is around. It's part of our lives. Experts don't expect the virus to magically disappear. And COVID-19 doesn't just bring intense physical woes.

"Nobody tells you about the dread," wrote Plaschke. "From the moment my doctor phoned me with the test results, to the moment I am writing this column, I have been scared out of my mind."

While sick, Plaschke knew fatality rates were low — though experts know the rate of death is substantially higher than the common flu and the virus has killed over 166,000 Americans as of Aug. 13 — and that he was an otherwise healthy person. But that couldn't quell the understandable anxiety.

"It doesn’t matter," Plaschke continued. "Once you realize you have a virus that could kill you and there’s nothing anybody can do about it, you live in constant fear."

Fear is reasonable, considering SARS-CoV-2 is still a relatively newly emerged human pathogen. That means our population has little to no natural immunity.

"It has everyone on the planet to attack," Dan Janies, a professor of bioinformatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who researches viruses, told Mashable in May.

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So our bodies have to fight a new infection, and the course of disease can be rough, or deadly. I encourage you to read Plaschke's full, lurid account for more about a coronavirus experience that didn't require hospitalization, but was terrible, nonetheless. Here are some of his experiences:

• "It felt like my head was on fire. One night I sweated through five shirts. I shook so much from the chills I thought I chipped a tooth. My chest felt like LeBron James was sitting on it. My fatigue made it feel as if I was dressed in the chains of Jacob Marley’s ghost. I coughed so hard it felt like I broke a rib."

• "I would fall asleep in a chair and wake up terrified from a hallucinatory dream where I was chased through a playground by old women with giant heads."

• At night: "You start coughing into a wet pillow and you can’t stop and your breath becomes ragged and your bed is soaking and you wonder, is now the time? Do you try to drive yourself to the hospital? Do you call an ambulance? Are you just being a baby? You can’t call any friends or family for help because they can’t be exposed. You can’t call your doctor because he’s already told you there’s nothing he can do."

Plaschke certainly wasn't acting outwardly reckless, like attending a crowded Smash Mouth show in Sturgis, South Dakota, on Sunday. But the virus still bit.

Wear those masks diligently, emphasize infectious disease experts. "We are not defenseless against COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield said in a statement. “Cloth face coverings are one of the most powerful weapons we have to slow and stop the spread of the virus — particularly when used universally within a community setting. All Americans have a responsibility to protect themselves, their families, and their communities."

The virus relies on hosts — us — to spread. The microbes can't survive and travel around communities without us. Many regions of the U.S. have seen surging cases this summer. It's out there. Stay vigilant.

"This is a virus that we know is very happy to take advantage of people being careless," Dr. Vince Silenzio, an M.D. and professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, told Mashable in May.