I contracted Covid-19 while bartending

I'd like to preface this and say I am NOT a doctor, or a scientist by any means. I listen to the CDC and my Dr. for advice as anyone should. If I say anything in this article that's dumb or medically inaccurate I AM dumb. *shrugs*, so there is that. This is just a story of my personal run in with the infamous Rona.

Like many Americans the Covid-19 pandemic turned my world upside down although not in the same way as most others. I got to keep my job and work from home all was well. Towards the end of the summer, things were looking up, restrictions were beginning to relax and things felt like they were headed back to normal. My partner and I decided we wanted to start saving to buy our first home together. I make a decent living, enough to pay my bills on time but never quite enough to really build up a savings account. I was considering driving for Uber again to make a bit more money but with the pandemic and so many being unemployed the Uber market was over saturated and ultimately not worth it. I was telling on of my coworkers about wanting a second job and he informed me his partner managed a bar and they were looking to hire new bartenders. I had no prior experience in the industry but they needed people ASAP so I got lucky (so I thought at the time) and landed the job.

At first it was great! I loved the regulars that had frequented the bar for years and I took home a good $100 a night in tips.

But, week by week as restrictions relaxed the bar became more crowded. I found myself cutting corners on nights when we were slammed. The bar where I worked had very little restrictions as it was but all precautions really went out the window as we got busier. To be honest I wasn't very concerned at first, I wore my mask the entire shift after all and had the bar between me and the customers. I, myself never went to bars or sit in restaurants even with the restrictions beginning to lift. I was careful. I felt safe. Safe enough to plan and book a weekend getaway to Colorado in September. I took the week off from my day job and from bartending.

On the week before my flight to Colorado I volunteered for a flu vaccine drive my job was having. I wore a mask and a face shield. Carried a hand sanitizer and kept my distance. Even though I got tested weekly and was confident I was negative. At the end of the drive I also received the vaccine and headed home. Later that day I began to feel a headache coming on. I thought nothing of it, headaches were common for me so I ignored it. About an hour later I started to feel chills and felt feverish. OH NO. I immediately made a same day appointment and rushed over to get tested. On my way home it dawned on me it may have just been a side effect of the vaccine but I stayed home and patiently waited for my results anyway. The next night I got my result: Negative. I was relived and I felt no other symptoms at that point so I figured it really had been a weird immune response to the vaccine.

I continued planning for my trip coming up the next week but 3 days after I got tested the first time I began to sneeze. A LOT. I chalked it up to possibly allergies at first but then my nose began to feel stuffy. By the next day my bones were aching and I felt weak. I was definitely sick but was it covid? It couldn't possibly be I had just tested negative. For my own piece of mind I got tested again. just two days before I was supposed to leave for my trip.

On the morning of my flight I received my results: POSITIVE for Covid-19. I was immediately terrified. My mind raced, who had I been around that week? Who might I have exposed? My partner, his pregnant sister, my mom, an elderly aunt. I immediately alerted my family and isolated myself. By the time I got my results I had little to no symptoms. I never developed a sore throat or a cough, I never had another fever aside from the first one that sparked my concerns in the first place.

I got lucky.

One by one everyone I had been around got tested and one by one they tested negative. After two weeks I felt like I could relax, it appears I kept my germs to myself and I too tested negative after two weeks in isolation.

The week following my negative results I returned to bartending. It felt good to be back at first. I found myself annoyed and angry that first week back. Every time a customer complained they couldn't hear me through my "stupid mask" or they complained when they had to put it on to go to the washroom. I felt betrayed. What if covid had killed me? Or a loved one, would this person that felt so inconvenienced by a piece of cloth care? Odds are the person who infected me in the first place didn't even know they did. Who else had they infected? Who may I have infected? Someone that touched the same gas pump as me? Someone at the ATM? I'll never know the answer to that question.

Another thing I realized when I returned was that the majority of my coworkers never even knew I got sick. Aside from management it was kept very hush hush. Never spoken of again. Who else had gotten sick? Had a coworker passed it on to me? Customers aren't required to wear a mask when they are seated at the bar. Not even to order. At first that didn't bother me, I was wearing a mask and we had the bar top between us but I realize now much more could have been done. As restrictions tightened back up, the bar has closed leaving many of my coworkers without a source of income or back on unemployment. Had covid been taken seriously from the very beginning many of us would be living in a much better world.

I look forward to returning to bartending one day, but not until it's safe.