I’m now dealing with COVID for the third time.
For all three of my cases (one each in 2022, 2023, and 2024) I have been able to trace with a high degree of certainty to playing in a live poker game with someone who was sick, but either did not know it or did not bother to warn the other players.
I typically play live poker 1.5 times per week on average, or roughly 75 times per year. So I am getting COVID from these games roughly 1.333% of the time.
Twice came from private games, once at a casino.
My cases have not been particularly severe. The first time was the worst of them. My current case is like a bad flu. But as with any other contagious illness, I do not want to infect others so I am quarantining and testing to make sure that I’m in the clear before resuming normal activity. This is a PITA to put it mildly, both for day-to-day chores, and my work.
Unfortunately, it also appears that I spread it to my girlfriend’s elderly parents, with whom we had a long lunch the day before I became symptomatic. I am obviously concerned that an illness which is manageable for me may not be so easy for them. One of them is already quite infirm.
Now, I am not interested in a political debate about COVID. We know how that will go.
But I do feel I need to seriously consider how to balance or manage my love of live poker with the seemingly inevitable illness it incurs for me once a year. (FWIW, I am almost never ill from anything else, and have never spent a night in a medical facility even when I was born in a remote African mission hospital!)
I am curious, again without engaging in a debate about the origins or other politics of COVID, what others are doing now that the pandemic has subsided publicly but the infection remains out there (and currently spreading rapidly again in some areas). I thought I was in the clear, and stopped worrying about it, but here I am missing time again.
Have you given up live poker? Limited yourself to only certain games which seem lower-risk? Or is COVID just an occupational hazard we have to accept now?
Also curious how people react nowadays if you mask up in a game? I see Ike Haxton does that, but gets a lot of grief about it. It would make me uncomfortable, and masks don’t guarantee anything, but I’m contemplating trying again to find a high-quality comfortable option.
For all three of my cases (one each in 2022, 2023, and 2024) I have been able to trace with a high degree of certainty to playing in a live poker game with someone who was sick, but either did not know it or did not bother to warn the other players.
I typically play live poker 1.5 times per week on average, or roughly 75 times per year. So I am getting COVID from these games roughly 1.333% of the time.
Twice came from private games, once at a casino.
My cases have not been particularly severe. The first time was the worst of them. My current case is like a bad flu. But as with any other contagious illness, I do not want to infect others so I am quarantining and testing to make sure that I’m in the clear before resuming normal activity. This is a PITA to put it mildly, both for day-to-day chores, and my work.
Unfortunately, it also appears that I spread it to my girlfriend’s elderly parents, with whom we had a long lunch the day before I became symptomatic. I am obviously concerned that an illness which is manageable for me may not be so easy for them. One of them is already quite infirm.
Now, I am not interested in a political debate about COVID. We know how that will go.
But I do feel I need to seriously consider how to balance or manage my love of live poker with the seemingly inevitable illness it incurs for me once a year. (FWIW, I am almost never ill from anything else, and have never spent a night in a medical facility even when I was born in a remote African mission hospital!)
I am curious, again without engaging in a debate about the origins or other politics of COVID, what others are doing now that the pandemic has subsided publicly but the infection remains out there (and currently spreading rapidly again in some areas). I thought I was in the clear, and stopped worrying about it, but here I am missing time again.
Have you given up live poker? Limited yourself to only certain games which seem lower-risk? Or is COVID just an occupational hazard we have to accept now?
Also curious how people react nowadays if you mask up in a game? I see Ike Haxton does that, but gets a lot of grief about it. It would make me uncomfortable, and masks don’t guarantee anything, but I’m contemplating trying again to find a high-quality comfortable option.
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