Tom Reichner wrote in post #19052000
.I was recently informed that I was exposed to SARS-CoV-2.
In the course of my work, I was needed to go into a small apartment that was inhabited by 4 people to help with a crisis there.
. The authorities ordered that the residents be tested, and all 4 were positive for COVID-19.
. Those among those four who are alive are now under official quarantine.
. So I guess that means I am on the so-called front lines or whatever.
That was certainly a concentrated encounter, which may have had different outcomes had you not been geared up. Of course, the best luck anyone can have is to get the virus, and not have complications, and find out that they've had it, but spread it to no one. I'd love to find out that I've already had it, without symptoms, because none of the parks or public transportation that I need to do my normal spring bird migration are actually shut down, and no one is asking people to justify their presence in them. I'd just continue to wear my gear and distance as much as possible for "good example", but otherwise return to as much of my "normal" as possible. Driving into Manhattan is not a nice option in my opinion, but that's where the migrants are most heavily drawn during migration, and where I know lots of other people who can find birds or tell me about found birds. It is nice to get out into the parks in my area, but the area has no features that concentrate migrants in transit like Central Park does; it has open water around it at a mile or more, and is immediately flanked by brick, concrete, and steel, pulling migrants in at a distance in early morning light, and then they pull even tighter over the day into specific areas with the best safety and feeding possibilities.
I live right in the US epicenter of SARS-2. The first explosion of the virus happened in the neighborhood that I do most of my grocery shopping, a 4 minute walk outside the 1-mile radius that was quarantined with the help of the US National Guard back in early March. An employee in my local Trader Joe's died from COVID-19-related complications. I was shopping for weeks in those stores before I started wearing gloves and a mask, and carrying a spray bottle of alcohol and using it on my gloves frequently. I am certain that I have had many individual copies of the virus on my clothes or skin, or even in my eyes, mouth or nose, but whether or not any of them actually got to an ACE-2 receptor and actually started replicating, is another story. Many probably get stuck somewhere and fall apart, or wind up in swallowed food and are degraded in the stomach. The more copies you take in, though, the more of a chance that one of them will make it to an ACE-2 receptor and begin replication.
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