My family's COVID experience

Earlier this week I was in Mumbai, visiting my COVID tortured family. My father, my mother and sister-in-law - all were ill and tasted positive for COVID on RT PCR test. My brother, who was the first one to fall sick, tested negative on RT PCR, although his test was done two weeks after he felt sick. My nephew, who had contracted COVID earlier in the year, didn't fall sick this time, nor did he test positive. 

We don't know how the infection crept into the family this late into the pandemic. Every one in the family has been vaccinated - two shots each, and everyone was taking precautions. So how this happened is a mystery. Since both my brother and nephew are now going to the office for work, it could have one of them getting exposed somewhere outside the house and bringing it in. Or it could be that my father got exposed when he went for a hair cut. Apparently the barber asked him to take his mask off so he could cut the hair, and father obliged.

My family also has the maid and cook coming in twice a day. Both wear masks while in the house, but they are not just visiting our home - they are going to other homes too. Could they have accidentally brought COVID exposure home? One doesn't know, although neither one has complained of illness or missed work in recent weeks.

But it doesn't really matter how the family got infected - what matters is the effect it had on my family. Most of the family members fared fairly well - they all had flu like symptoms like high fever, body ache, weakness and fatigue for a few days, but they recovered fine in a couple weeks. But my father, who is 85 years old, was impacted really badly. He had to be hospitalized and spent 5 days in the COVID ICU fighting a battle to save his life. Thankfully, Remdesvir did its job, and oxygen supply was not an issue, so he left the hospital after about 10 days and returned home to continue his treatment. 

But the disruption it caused in the family was immense. For starters, as soon as the results came out, the family was quarantined. This made things very challenging, especially when it came to taking father to the hospital. It isn't easy dealing with a 85 year old COVID patient, who feels extremely insecure and needs family support. 

Fortunately, the hospital acquiesced to my brother's request to stay back and care for my father, and allowed him to be quarantined with my father in the COVID ward. Since my brother had not tested positive, he had to gown up fully, just like the other health care workers for the entire period he stayed there. However, once father was moved to the COVID ICU unit, my brother could no longer accompany him. This was quite traumatic for father who really thought that he would never see his family again. 

Fortunately, the COVID treatment protocols have matured significantly and the doctors were able to move him back to the regular COVID ward within five days where my brother returned to provide daily support. I am amazed that my brother was even allowed in the COVID ward - in the US, this would be almost impossible!

None of us expected that our family would be impacted by COVID so late into the pandemic Although we continue to take precautions in the US, and in India, the signs of normalization are every where. But there are differences. In the US, malls are still relatively empty, restaurants are not as busy as in the past and most of us continue to work from home. In Mumbai though, the way things have normalized, one would think that COVID is a thing of the past. 

One day I was in Dadar and Bandra parts of Mumbai, two highly populated areas, but also areas where one goes for any kind of shopping. The scene there was mind boggling! Crowds upon crowds of people on the street mingling about, some wearing masks, some not, hawkers selling street food and people consuming it right there. Of course, no question of social distancing to speak of and people going about their business as if COVID never happened. I was shocked. This is the same community that had thousands upon thousands of people die just months ago because the hospital system was overwhelmed with a tsunami of COVID patients. 

But today the COVID infection rates have come down considerably - perhaps only a few hundred new cases diagnosed daily. And this may have lulled people into believing that it isn't necessary to take the precautions - wearing a mask, maintaining personal hygiene, maintaining social distancing etc - that some of us continue to take to this day. 

Is this what herd immunity looks like? Has India truly achieved herd immunity?

Regardless, my own family's experience shows that just because one is vaccinated, it doesn't mean one is unlikely to get infected with COVID. Rather, the infection is not likely to be life threatening in young and healthy. But the elderly and frail might still be very much in danger and need to be careful. 

The other lesson our family experience teaches us - if one has a fever, it is better to get tested early for COVID. Today we have drugs like Remdesvir which can dramatically reduce the impact of the disease on the lungs. In my father's case, we let things slide for a few days thinking it was just regular viral infection (dengue, chicken-gunia and flu are endemic to India) that would resolve itself in a few days. The result was that his lungs got badly infected and fibrosis set in requiring hospitalization. This could have been avoided if he had been tested earlier and treatment had begun a week earlier.

Another reason to remain cautious, is the possibility of new variants emerging. Already there are news reports of a new COVID strain B1.1529 emerging in South Africa, which has multiple mutations in the spike protein, making it more virulent. Who knows if this variant is likely to be as dangerous as the Delta plus variant which had a devastating impact in India, but UK and some European countries are so concerned that they have decided to ban flights from some African countries. 

Such strains will continue to emerge until the entire world population is vaccinated. Since this is unlikely to happen for a significant amount of time, one cannot let ones guard down. 

Moral of the story is that we cannot let our guard down.