Since the last time I’ve blogged about COVID in Australia, which was September 2021, a lot has happened! The NSW state opened up a week after I gave birth, the COVID cases peaked in December, climbed down then climbed up again in March 2022 after international borders opened on 21 February. It is now going down again. I was on maternity leave for four months and didn’t work when Australia experienced its biggest peak. After returning to work in February, the numbers started climbing up again. Encounters with people who’s got COVID eventually became inevitable (unintentional, only got notified about people testing positive afterwards). In April, there was a huge outbreak in the church we attend. But because I attended church via YouTube live broadcast from 20 March until the end of May, we’ve avoided getting caught up in that outbreak. Baby Charlie had two episodes of cold-like symptoms, once in April and once in May. In both instances, he was found to have rhinovirus only. Meanwhile, the outbreak in my home country, Taiwan, has gotten out of hand since April 2022. One of my paternal aunt, who just got diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer, caught COVID during chemotherapy and spread it to my paternal uncle’s whole family. One of my maternal cousins’ whole family caught it.
Despite inevitably coming into contact with people with COVID due the nature of my work, I've never gotten sick. Got a serology test on 6 June, and it seems like I never caught COVID! I got the spike protein antibodies from to my COVID vaccination but no nucleocapsid antibodies (which people get when they catch COVID). Maybe my immune system is so efficient that it kills off the virus before they even had a chance to give me COVID? Thank God for His protection.
The result will not change my vigilance in protecting myself against the virus though. I’ve heard that how sick a person gets also depends on the concentration of the virus the person is exposed to, so wearing a mask and hand sanitising regularly helps. I am just quite surprised that I haven't got the nucleocapsid antibodies, despite having been exposed to several cases.
