Pandemic has its side effects

Side effects of COVID-19 are likely to be studied for years to come.

Side effects like:

•The mental and emotional health impact of quarantine.

•Weight gain.

•Increased alcohol consumption.

•Blood pressure issues related to social friction over the wearing of masks. (I’ll be the first to admit that it sends my blood pressure through the roof when I encounter some self-absorbed yahoo who can’t take the slightest step to protect those around him. I keep wanting to scream: “The Golden Rule!”)

•Isolation and depression.

•Stress-related health problems for those working in nursing homes and hospitals.

•The emotional toll on loved ones separated at the time of death.

•The impact of guilt on the part of those who suspect they spread the disease to others.

It’s a pretty horrible list, but then again 2020 has been a pretty horrible year.

There’s another one that comes to mind, especially if you’re a member of the “high-risk population.”

That’s the nagging fear — usually in the middle of the night — that you might have it, that you might test positive.

The symptoms are, after all, pretty much a laundry list of everyday feelings for most of us over 65.

Aches and pains? Check that box.

Headache? Sure, now and then.

Cold or flu-like symptoms? Could be, though you hope they’re just allergies.

As if that’s not enough, there’s a good chance you could have the dang thing and be asymptomatic. (There’s a word none of us used much that has now become part of our routine vocabulary.)

All in all, it’s enough to turn all of us into hypochondriacs. (Imagine how the folks feel who were real hypochondriacs before COVID-19 arrived.)

So, you roll over about 3 a.m. and maybe your shoulder hurts. Is it because you were putting up storm windows? Or is it the pandemic?

Or, after getting into a comfortable position in bed, your sinuses throb. Is it because you had that extra glass of red wine with dinner? Or is it the pandemic?

Or maybe you’ve been raking leaves, trying to enjoy the autumn weather and get out of the house, but you find yourself sneezing. Is it the leaf dust and mold? Or is it the pandemic?

You get the picture.

So what do you do?

At our house, where I have a 72nd birthday approaching and we’re both aware of our vulnerabilities, our best answer has been to try to reduce risks as much as possible while acknowledging that we can’t reduce them all.

We wear masks when we should. We keep our distance from others. We both have our individual hand sanitizer dispensers handy.

While we’ve eaten indoors at a few restaurants, we’ve put that on hold for now because of the spike in local cases. When the weather was better, we made a point of eating outside.

And we tip. We tip big. Much of the economic burden of the pandemic has fallen on hourly employees like wait staff. We’ve made a conscious effort to leave behind the biggest tips possible. Instead of 15% or 20%, we’ve been known to leave 100%.

We Zoom and Facetime rather than meeting in person. It’s become a weekly event with our kids and grandchildren and, while nowhere near as good as a visit in person, it beats the heck out of a long distance phone call back in the day.

In other words, we play it safe.

But we try to balance that with a bit of fatalism, knowing that none of our precautions are virus-proof.

So if it does get us, we’ll know that we did the best we could.

Seems to me that makes more sense than the alternative.