A Mexican Covid Story

*There are parties involved who would not want me to share this story. If it gets taken down and I disappear, you’ll know from all my past posts that what I write about with censorship and free speech is completely legitimate. I’m half kidding, half serious.*

Arrival

My friend got married in Mexico this past weekend at a picturesque, all inclusive, resort. I’ll create a separate post on these festivities because it has nothing to do with this post. The experience was incredible and this part of the story was bad luck.

I’m vaccinated with no booster shot. My concern for Covid is laissez-faire. I’m fine with not wearing a mask and catching Covid was never in my thinking prior to catching it. When I arrived in Mexico, I felt perfect. Was there a chance I was positive prior to leaving? It’s possible, but unlikely.

Arrival was last Tuesday and I played golf the first day and ate dinner at the resort. It’s impossible to pinpoint any spot where I could have caught Covid, but I’m guessing it was immediately. I had a standard amount of drinks the first night but I knew I was playing golf early the next day so I didn’t overdo it. When I look back on it now, I woke up feeling 85%. I wasn’t as hungry as I usually would be but I attributed that to the alcohol. I played golf worse than I played the previous day and attributed to being shitty. That night at a buffet dinner I could hardly eat at all. I went to sleep waking up every 1-2 hours and needing to pee out the Tecate lights.

We played golf a 3rd day and my neck / spine was hurting a bit. It was noticeable but I attributed it to trying to take a longer back swing from my lesson. I went though this day and wasn’t hungry for the dinner which as you’ll notice is a theme. I also slept poorly again.

Now, the 4th night was the wedding and I was feeling fine. Our table did a load of tequila shots and I was around all the party the entire night. I woke up, ran 2 miles, and then I was scheduled to get a Covid test in order to fly back to the States the next day.

The Test

I took an 11am test and at 12pm I got a call from our host that I had to go back to the room because I had tested positive. What?! I thought this was a formality? How am I supposed to get home the next day? What about all the other people I infected? False positive? All of this was running through my mind as I slinked back to my room feeling like the plague.

The hotel gave me an option to take a PCR test for $100. Remember this. I did and a man in a hazmat suit came in and took samples from my nose and saliva. They would have the results by midnight. At this point I’m stuck in my room and watching Mexican soap operas and Futbol. I got room service and went to sleep at 9pm. The current theme to the trip was sleeping for 1 hour at a time and waking up so I saw my phone at 11:30pm that said the PCR test came back negative. Whew! What a relief. Now I can go home and I don’t have Covid!

The Plot Twist

Here is where the story gets a bit more intriguing. I thought it was odd that the PCR test came back negative and the antigen test was positive. What were the odds? At that point, I chalked it up to a false positive but in the back of my mind I knew something was up. To add to all the drama, Frontier cancelled my 10:30am flight with no re-booking. Never fly Frontier as a side note. I’m scrambling to book a flight because I have to get out of Mexico as the airlines need a negative test that was taken 24 hours prior. I couldn’t chance another positive antigen test so I booked a 5pm flight with a 10 hour delay in Houston the next morning. I had to get out of Mexico! I can’t stress enough how stressful this decision was because flights back to Philly all started filling and prices started to get in the thousands of dollars. A decision had to be made quickly.

So I get to the airport early because in the back of my mind I didn’t know if I’d be able to fly with the positive test. My thought was a positive test gets reported to the Federales and every airline. So here I am in this haphazard airport, with the possibility of having Covid, and praying to god my flight doesn’t get cancelled. Amazingly my second flight starts with a 3 hour delay because the plane engine needed repair. Jesus, get worse one time. I was prepared for this trip to get cancelled and then I’m fully fucked. To my astonishment, the plane got to Houston at 11pm. My flight to Philly was at 7am so I slept on an airport chair until I finally got back. You may think this was plain dumb but the alternative was chancing another positive test and being in Mexico for a week in a hotel room. A normal person may have said, thank the lord for the negative PCR test, but I had other thoughts. I went to CVS when I got home and did a self test that came back positive.

Where I’m At

First and foremost I’m ecstatic to be back home. This story could have been 10x worst if I was still in Mexico wondering when I’d be able to come home. There are a few key components of this story though that are tremendous head scratchers.

• How was I one of the only people to test positive if Covid is so infectious? 1 of 70? 1 of thousands at the resort? There is no answer to this except Covid is not that contagious. To my knowledge, I had not had Covid before which would also be a strong possibility that once having it, you don’t get it again easily.
• How am I vaccinated and still catching Covid? Strong case for the booster.
• How did I party those days with Covid and virtually no symptoms? If I didn’t test positive, there was no thought in my mind I had Covid. When they tested me, I was 99% sure it would come back negative.
• Why does the hotel want a Covid positive person traveling? I’d think they don’t want you infecting other guests so they get you out. To think that there are tons of Covid positive people walking around does not make you want to stay at a hotel. Plus, putting a Covid positive person in an airport with thousands of people around is something to think about.
• Should I have handled this differently? Was that negative PCR test enough for a peace of mind? At first, I was relieved the test was negative. Frankly, it’s possible I am negative and the antigen test is incorrect and this test was correct. I have no clue. Getting out of Mexico was my #1 priority.

Is Covid Being Handled Correctly by Society?

This story should make you wonder about all the holes in Covid and parties involved. I was able to do every single thing that I wanted to for my entire vacation WITH Covid and others weren’t affected. Was that because I’m vaccinated? If so, then who cares if they catch it? I didn’t even know I had it based on symptoms. I could smell and taste. I had no sore throat. I didn’t have a fever. To think I traveled with Covid should also give pause because I’d guess hundreds of people do that a day. What difference did it make? My feeling is that people with Covid are no different than people without after my experience. If 20 people at the party caught the bug, I’d think differently, but those weren’t the “facts”. During my downtime I was looking for stories exactly like mine where the Mexicans fabricated test results for some reason or another and couldn’t find it. The bottom line is that this happened with me. It put me in the inevitable position of traveling with Covid to go home or quarantining in a foreign country in a hotel room. What would you have done ? I’ll tell you. Get the hell out of Mexico. If you believe that the Mexican PCR test was accurate, than that’s another possibility. There are no facts with Covid.