I’m COVID positive in Vegas and what a strange trip it has been.

I was in Vegas to attend a work conference and arrived four days early to visit my brother and my mother who is in a nursing home there. 

I came to Vegas right after a girl’s weekend with three vaccinated friends.  One of the friends had an upper respiratory infection during our trip, but was tested before and after the trip and tested COVID negative both times.   So, when on day two of my Vegas visit, I got a little scratchy throat I chalked it up to the dry air.  And on day three, when I got the sniffles, I assumed I had caught my friend’s respiratory thing. 

I went to check into the Mandalay Bay for my conference on a Thursday.  Our conference materials said that the hotel had on-site COVID testing and I thought my co-workers at the conference would want to be reassured that my sniffles were not COVID, so I called for the test.   They couldn’t test me until Saturday.  I wanted the test before attending any conference activities, so I set out to find a test elsewhere.  Not an easy task in Vegas. 

I signed up online for a test at a testing center nearby and masked up and Ubered on over.  Despite the fact I could sign up online, the center was closed.  CVS couldn’t see me same-day.  Neither could Walgreens.   Where exactly was one supposed to get tested in Vegas?

Care Now Urgent Care could see me, so back into an Uber and across town to Care Now. 

A couple of hours later and after the requisite swab-up-the-nose I was told I was COVID positive.  I was sure I had heard her wrong, insisting I am vaccinated.   A silly response to be sure, I’m smart enough to know that there are breakthrough cases.  But still, surely that happened to other people, not to me.  Not right before a conference I was looking forward to.  Not in Vegas. 

I took the paperwork and prescriptions from the Care Now doctor and walked across the street to the CVS.  The store was open but the pharmacy was closed.  So, I set about finding a 24 hour pharmacy in Vegas.  Despite the fact that several were listed online as 24-hour, when I called to confirm, they were, in fact closed. 

With my phone at 4% charge, I was able to find a 24 hour Walgreens halfway across town and masked up and Ubered on over.  I was feeling guilty at this point for getting in an Uber, but what choice did I have?  I had sanitizing wipes with me and wiped off every handle I touched.  My mask was an N-95.  But still…..

I got the prescriptions filled and had just enough charge on my phone to get an Uber back to Mandalay Bay.  Whew. 

I notified my co-workers and Human Resources department who advised me to notify the Mandalay Bay.  The Mandalay Bay told me they did not know what the current protocol was for COVID positive guests.  They said they’d never had a COVID positive guest before.  Hard to believe.  Maybe no one had ever admitted it to them before. 

Mandalay Bay passed it up the chain and a director, who was fantastic contacted me and said she was checking on the policy.   She got back with me and told me that Clarke County requires them to move COVID positive guests off the strip to a special COVID hotel that is paid for by the state.  She assured me it a nice hotel and they will provide me with meals, laundry service and transportation to the hotel, all paid for by the state of Nevada.   Sounds like a pretty good deal.  The COVID hotel was full, so I would quarantine at the Mandalay Bay for one more night.   Contactless room service.  No problem.

The next day, a non-emergency ambulance transport picked me up to take me to the COVID hotel. 

When I arrived at the COVID hotel, it was not as expected.  It was a run-down Super 8 motel in a marginal part of town.   All the residents that were visible and hanging out, were unmasked.  Clearly not COVID positive folks.  I was handed a sheaf of papers asking for various personal information (Social Security number, etc.), medical information, medical releases, drug rehab agreements, rules about leaving the property, rules about outside people coming onto the property, etc.   

Drug rehab agreements?

It became obvious to me that I was at a facility that at some point during COVID had been converted to help get the homeless off the street.  A great thing to be sure, but not what I was expecting to be housed in.  Not what Mandalay Bay had led me to expect.  Not what Vegas needs to be doing if they want people to be truthful, to get off the strip and to stay off the airplanes going home.

The staff at the COVID hotel was lovely, helpful, accommodating.   I was not comfortable with the paperwork, so I called my HR department to tell them I would be looking for different options.  But what were my options?  The non-emergency transport was gone and I was told that Uber and Taxis would not pick up at that location due to the nature of what the facility was. 

Was a trapped?   Thank goodness my brother lived in Vegas, otherwise it would have felt that way.   My brother and his husband had told me I could quarantine at their house, but I didn’t want to expose them any more than I already had – if I could find another option. 

I called rental car companies to rent a one-way rental and just get out of Vegas and get home.  There were no one-way rentals to be had. 

Meanwhile, the temperature had climbed to 106 degrees while I sat outside with all my luggage trying to find options.  The lovely staff at the COVID hotel told me to go ahead and get into the air conditioned room at least temporarily.  No paperwork required. 

So I did. 

The room wasn’t good, but I’ve seen worse.  It was obvious the bathroom had not been cleaned since the last resident stayed there.  The toilet, sink and shower were dirty.  There were no blankets on the bed.  I called the staff and they brought me a whole tub of Lysol wipes, a case of water, blankets, extra toilet paper.  They were very nice. 

I wiped down the bathroom, and every other surface in the place. 

The internet was good.

I thought I’d stay a bit and get a feel about it. 

Maybe I could make it work.  I wasn’t that delicate was I?   I would be locked in after all.  So, what difference did it make what was outside the door? 

Then, a couple of hours later there was a knock on the door.  No one in the peephole.  I looked out the window, no one there.  I opened the door with the security bar in place.  A guy was standing in front of the next room.  He told me that there was a guy walking up and down randomly knocking on doors.  Hm.

I went back into my room and considered how truthful this was likely to be.  I hadn’t seen anyone but him.  I wondered if he were just scoping out the room to see who was inside.  Now he knew. 

About twenty minutes later, another knock.  No one at the peephole.  But same guy standing there when I peeked out the window.  Seemed I was being pestered. 

I called the front desk and told them what was going on and let them know I’d be finding another option.  Time to call my brother for a rescue. 

I found a hotel in town and decided I would just quarantine elsewhere.  Oh, I know, it wasn’t ethical to go into a hotel knowing I had COVID.  I get it.  But my ethics had landed me at the COVID hotel and it was time to go. 

My brother and his husband masked up and picked me up.  As I lugged my suitcases down the stairs, an elderly African American man offered to help me with them.  I told him I was contagious and he shouldn’t touch my luggage.  He thought I was being racist and said so.  I tried to re-explain that I was contagious, but he was merely offended. 

We drove with the windows down to my chosen hotel.  I wiped down every surface in their car as I exited. 

I checked in with the N-95 mask, handling my credit cards with a Lysol wipe.  I hoped the guy at the desk didn’t suspect.  Hopefully he just thought I was a germophobe.

No maid service. I’ve been working from the room, eating peanut butter M&M’s, chips and guacamole (courtesy of my co-workers who ubered over with an enormous bag of goodies) and contactless door dash for dinner.

 I admit I’ve been going to the ice machine to get ice in my N-95 mask.  But I touch the ice maker with a Lysol wipe and haven’t seen or had contact with anyone. 

Yesterday, I got a message from the convention letting convention attendees know that another convention attendee had tested COVID positive, and letting them know they’d all been exposed.  I wondered what had happened to that COVID positive attendee.  I bet he didn’t end up at the COVID hotel. 

I heard today that a doctor at the convention had rented a round-trip rental car and just drove it one way to Louisiana regardless of how his rental was set up.  Was he the COVID positive guy?  At least he found a way out of Vegas. 

But I’ve never been a rule breaker and wouldn’t have thought of just breaking the car rental rules.

So I’m still in Vegas and have four days more to quarantine in Vegas.  And it’s fine.  I’ve thought about my in-laws who are in a nursing home and could not leave their room for an entire year during COVID last year.  They ate in their room, they stayed in their room.  For a year. 

A week is a short time. 

COVID in Vegas, does not stay in Vegas.  COVID anywhere doesn’t stay contained, even by vaccinations.

Don’t’ get me wrong, I support vaccinations.  But, all those folks at the convention who were exposed by the COVID positive guy, are flying home to places all over the country.  Most of them are vaccinated -- it was a doctor’s convention.  But nonetheless, some of them, like me, may be infected breakthrough cases, infecting other people.  I walked around Vegas infected for several days before I got tested.  Thank god I only saw my mom through the window of her nursing home.  Thank goodness I tested before the convention and didn’t go to any of the convention events.  But still, who knows who I infected?  Was it someone with vulnerable health?  Someone’s baby?  Someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather?

Because I was vaccinated, I saw myself as one of the ones who was NOT the problem.  It was the unvaccinated who were the problem, who needed to still mask-up, who needed to be concerned about themselves and their impact on others. 

But it’s not true.  We are all still a part of this, vaccine or not.  We all still have the potential to become infected, to pass it to others.  

It’s too easy to point the finger.  It’s too easy to live in a headspace of what the other guy needs to do to make this problem go away, what needs to happen to make the world as it “should” be.  Regardless of what side of the issue you are on. 

But the world is not what it should be.  It never was.  It never will be. 

And COVID has shown us that we have to figure out how to live with that reality without destroying each other.  Literally. 

Pointing the finger is not the way to make the world as it should be.  Scapegoating others won’t do it.  Somehow we need to figure out how to be united in this rather than divided.  Because the reality is – we are united in this.  Way more than any of us want to be and it’s that reality that we are pushing against.  It’s hard to be that connected to others because we can’t control them. 

I can’t control if my neighbor gets the vaccine.  I can only control my choices in this.  Whether or not I get the vaccine, whether or not I continue to wear a mask so that if I get a breakthrough infection I don’t infect others.  Whether or not I can respect my neighbor’s decisions and forgive them.  And if I infected my neighbor this week, can he forgive mine?