As someone who quite often talks for a living (that’s radio life for you), I would be quite conscious of my breathing and of breathing patterns.
Two days following a positive antigen test and I’ve noticed that my muscles ache – not considerably, but noticeably – and my breathing, in general, is shallower – particularly at night.
Of course an antigen test isn’t going to tell you what strain of COVID-19 you’ve picked up, but if you listen to the World Health Organisation, they’ll tell you it’s omicron or what’s more likely do be doing the Irish rounds at present, the subvariant called BA.2 or ‘stealth omicron’.
Bollinger says, “The answer appears to be no. In fact, there is evidence that omicron may cause less severe disease than the delta variant.”
“What we see is that omicron may have more of an affinity for our upper airways than our lower airways, and can be more easily spread through talking, coughing or breathing, especially from people without masks on. Omicron also may have more potential for airborne aerosolization of the virus, hanging in the air in indoor settings,” Maragakis says.
via Hopkins Medicine
Indeed an email from a colleague on Monday to arrange some VO work said something along the lines of “you’ll be out of breath”.
I didn’t buy into it at first but 24-48 hours later and they’re on the money. Controlling my breathing keeps any coughing at bay.
The muscle aches/stiffness could come from sitting down working at home all day but given they didn’t appear to be present pre this week, I’ll attribute them to the current state of play.
While I may not be in what one could describe as ‘peak health’, in the last 2-3 years I’ve become more acutely aware of what my body is doing and why, how I react to certain things like sugar, dairy, late nights, early starts, lots of sleep, no sleep so this week’s experience has me paying attention to every little detail and nuance.
Yes, I’ve had the initial two rounds of vaccinations, followed by a booster vaccine last December. Without stirring any manner of COVID controversy, I would be curious to see what the impact on my body would have been without same, even two years into the pandemic.
