I flew to and from the Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival to help promote my short animated film, COVID Dystopia. I wore a KN-95 mask while I traveled and anytime I was indoors.
I believe I was infected on Delta flight 1652 between Detroit and Orlando Florida.I think my facial hair caused a leak in the mask seal.
On that long flight where every passenger but myself went unmasked, several people were coughing up their lungs the entire two hour flight. Airlines are supposed to have HEPA filters for the air piped into the cabin, so I had my air vent blowing directly at me. My eyes went unprotected. In the future I plan to get some goggles.
Several days after this flight, on Thanksgiving, I started to get a sore throat. I tested myself and was relieved to test negative with the at home test by Binax Now. Thinking I just had a slight cold, I spent the weekend helping a friend with an art project. I realize now I should have stayed home. Though most of the work was done outside, my friend caught the cold and got incredibly tired.
Seeing my fried crash, I decided to test myself again for COVID when I got back to my studio. This test was done with the OHC free test supplied by the US government. This time I tested positive for COVID-19. The first Binax Now test had offered a false negative result. It offered false hope.
I had managed to avoid the virus for 5 years but promoting COVID Dystopia turned out to be the most dangerous thing I have done since the start of the pandemic. The film tries to warn people that the pandemic is not over, and that the virus is circulating freely among us all year long. The tag line for the film is, “We might be done with COVID but COVID is not done with us.” It is ironic that I was infected while shouting into the void that message that no one at any film festival wants to hear.
After testing positive for COVID, I went into 5 days of isolation. Ironically it was a Delta executive who cut down the CDC’s recommendation of 10 days of isolation to just 5 days of isolation. The Delta executive could not keep pilots and stewardesses in the air since they kept getting sick. He felt it was better that they return to flight even if they were infected with COVID-19. The planes, had to run on time, to help spread the virus all across America and the world. Executives and politicians across America quickly adopted the 5 day rule though it is not based on science, just wishful thinking.
After 5 days of isolation, I tested again and tested positive for COVID-19 again. I will therefor be going into isolation for 5 more days. Since I had not shopped for food since well before Thanksgiving, I learned to use Instacart to restock the my food supplies. I wasn’t about to shop while infected.
If I didn’t know better I might think COVID was just like a bad cold. But I know COVID is a vascular disease more like HIV than a cold. The initial infection no longer caused the horrifying lung infections from the early days of the pandemic. COVID is a vascular disease that breaks down immunity and causes damage to the heart and brain and just about every organ in the body. All of this goes unseen so people can ignore it and pretend that life has returned to pre-2019 normal until it is too late. I have to wonder how many of my brain cells have now fused and died, thanks to COVID.
If I am correct about getting infected on Delta flight 1652, then I have had COVID-19 for 16 days so far. I will be testing again on Friday the 13th of December 2024. If COVID kills me, I want the following carved on my headstone, Thomas John Thorspecken, Born May 22, 1961, Dumont N.J., Died ______ Orlando Florida, “We might be done with COVID, but COVID isn’t done with us.”