Sometimes, it can take a while to notice confusion
Epistemic status: Anecdote. tl;dr: I had multiple opportunities to notice my confusion, but failed every time until I actually thought about it. Ended up testing positive for COVID, despite expectations. Background I started preparing for the pandemic in January 2020. At the time, I was living alone. In January, my visa lapsed, and I moved in with someone else while waiting for a new visa to finish processing. Among all the people I know around the world, I think I was the single most cautious. Nobody had seen my face directly for almost a year, I was always masked (and, since October, double masked), I washed fastidiously, and never spent too long near others. With the move, though, I was exposed to far more risk, which was the other person's activities. She's an immunologist, and wears a mask when she goes out (e.g., to work). She also got vaccinated a while ago, along with all her friends. Symptoms begin On Wednesday 31 March, I woke up with a dry throat. I had forgotten the window open, and I sleep with my mouth open when I'm tired, so I wasn't very concerned. This had happened before. The next day, the window had been closed, but the dryness hadn't gone away yet, which I found strange, but ignored. (Mistake 1.) I did a work meeting, then went to rent a car for the long weekend, which was supposed to be my first vacation since before pandemic. The AirBnB was also booked. And so we went. (Mistake 2.) That night, when my roommate and I arrived at our destination (a basement apartment; no interaction with the host), it was very cold, and I started coughing. I thought it might just be a cold. (Mistake 3.) The coughing persisted until the next morning. My SO asked me to take it easy that day, and to do a PCR test when I could. I tried to assuage her fears, and brushed it off as nothing serious. (Mistake 4.) However, partially because she was worried, and partially because the cough was not nothing, I did curtail our plans for the first day. Symptoms subside
Hi! I am unable to form any habits or routines (even brushing my teeth, if I remember to do it, is a fully conscious act; I need physical checklists when driving to make sure to check that I have my seatbelt on etc.) I have a post here on LessWrong about it, and since then it's been more of the same with certain caveats. Let me know if you have any questions or want to call etc.