Ballroom and the Virus

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve usually done a post at about this time going over my view of the current state of affairs regarding the ‘rona. Going to skip that for now. All I’ll say is that it is very clear we are into the third wave – percent positives went up again and that more states are seeing upward trends in positive results. This includes my home state.

Because this is the last day before the weather turns colder, we decided to go take a walk before lunch. Suddenly, my phone buzzes and it is the studio calling me. I assume it is some issue with the coaching lesson I’ve got scheduled for tonight. Then, I find out that someone at the studio tested positive for the virus.

As of now, this person really doesn’t have a fever and feels fine and I certainly hope this continues to be the case. Unfortunately, while we weren’t really in close contact, we were within conversation distance multiple times over the last couple of weeks. Masks are required in the studio so we were always masked but it is certainly fair to say I’ve been in contact.

The studio left it up to me to decide what to do. I suppose everyone assesses risk in different ways. While I think my personal risk is low, it just seemed like the prudent thing to do to cancel my lessons for the week. That gives me time to get tested (scheduled for Thursday) and also see what happens when the staff gets tested.

It sucks because I think the coaching would have been good. We would have gotten the critique on our Tango and maybe had some concrete things to work on. I guess the coach already had the virus and tested positive for antibodies so no risk there. If I was younger, I think I would have gone. Per the CDC, the survival rate for my age group is between 98%-99% which is still high but not quite high enough to justify keeping a lesson for tonight without knowing the potential scope of the problem at the studio.

Other than my seasonal allergies, I don’t have any symptoms so I wouldn’t say I’m overly concerned. Still, it will feel better to have a definitive answer.