Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Here we go again

The omicron variant of COVID 19 is contagious as heck!

I am confined to working from home until the end of this week. In fact, our entire department has paused in-person service on campus for the same duration. On a similar vein, classes at San Francisco State is going completely remote for the first three weeks of the Spring semester. It seems like we’re going backwards in terms of progress, but it’s the correct decision given the amount of infections and close-contacts.

Both my housemates tested positive last week, which is why I am staying home this week. San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines state that if you’re vaccinated (in any capacity) and you’ve come in close-contact with a COVID infected person - but you have zero symptoms, you actually don’t have to quarantine! Wear a proper mask and you can go about your business as normal. I guess we’re playing it more cautiously when my supervisor told me to go home last Thursday.

I would have been perfectly okay with continuing work on campus.

Anyways, I’m getting a PCR test later this morning. Thankfully it’s the saliva method and not the one where they stick a thing way up your nose. My friends who’ve had the latter said it was not a pleasant experience in the slightest. Fingers crossed it returns negative.

It’s another weird start to yet another year. 2020 we were looking at bad news from Asia and Italy, and doing nothing ourselves to prepare for the eventuality. 2021 we were rejoicing at the availability of the vaccines, (falsely) thinking we were going back to normal fairly soon. 2022 looks like it’s pseudo lockdown part two, electric boogaloo.

A rare sight: a clean first-generation Ford Focus!