Well, I guess it was bound to happen.

After two years of enduring all the restrictions through this pandemic, it finally happened to me.

I got the corona. I got the virus.

I got the COVID.

Or so a home test tells me.

I just didn’t feel right Wednesday morning, had a dry cough, runny nose and was achy and chilled. As per our company COVID policy I stayed home from work because I had some of the symptoms of COVID. You know, the list that you are asked when you go to the hospital or clinic or other such places.

As this is being written a day later, on Thursday, I still feel like I have a rotten bad cold.

Luckily, I can do a lot of my work from home. You know, write stories, edit stories, format items sent in for the newspaper.

Write this column.

The answers to your questions are, no, I don’t know where I got it from, and yes, I was double vaccinated and boosted.

And yes, I am fully aware I am not the first person to get COVID, nor will I be the last. As someone said a while back, all of us will probably get the COVID before this pandemic is over.

That just might be true, what with this new Omicron variant, which seems to be so easily spreading from person to person. I have heard from lots of people in the past couple of weeks who have come down with the coronavirus. In fact, there are so many the number of cases is spiking pretty high.

I mean, there were 851,000 new cases in the U.S. on Wednesday, and over 10,000 of those were in Minnesota. That number, of course is the reported cases total. With the heavy use of home tests (in fact, the government is going to send four tests to every household in the country for free) the number of cases is probably way higher than what is reported.

In fact, I predict that eventually the number of cases per day may cease to be tracked, because all the testing will be done in homes.

But I digress.

In case you are wondering, the total number of cases reported in Minnesota now tops 1,148,888. The total number of hospitalizations in Minnesota, since the start of the pandemic, is now at 53,836 (as of Nov. 18.) and 10,335 of those were in ICU.

And, although I really didn’t want to know this fact, there have been exactly 11,000 deaths due to COVID in Minnesota, with 5,234 of those in long-term care or assisted living facilities.

In Faribault County there have been 3,026 cases and 44 deaths, in Martin County there have been 4,490 cases and 53 deaths, in Freeborn County 7,012 cases and 57 deaths and in Blue Earth County 13,885 cases and 84 deaths.

So, like I already mentioned, I am not the first person to get COVID, here in Faribault County, or Minnesota or in the country.

I am not even the first person in my office to get it. Or in my family.

I have had some friends and family members who got COVID a way long time ago and had hardly any symptoms at all. Someone else in my family had it and was really sick for weeks, before recovering.

That was all before the vaccine was available. Now if you have the shots and the booster, you can still get COVID (as I well know) but the symptoms are hopefully lessened.

I would like to say that I have always been pretty cautious and careful during this pandemic and that it is a shock that I got this virus. But that just would not be true.

While I have tried to stay away from huge crowds, I have still attended plenty of events, both as part of my job and for family gatherings. And, in full disclosure, I have traveled quite a few times during the past two years, but always tried to do so carefully – being vaxed and boosted and wearing a mask much of the time…

Still, I was not overly cautious. I certainly did not stay home all the time. I didn’t avoid going places for the past two years, like restaurants and shopping at businesses.

I believe we still need to live our lives. And if we get the corona, then I guess that is just what we have to get through.

After all, perhaps we are all going to get it sometime anyway. Or maybe some of us already did and didn’t even know it.

Just some random thoughts while staying quarantined at home on a cold and frigid day in Minnesota.

Hope you are all able to stay healthy. See you next week…after I quit having symptoms and have a negative COVID test, as per CDC protocol and company policy.