Thread by @KristiWhitePhD

I typically limit the personal details I share on Twitter, but in the service of #PublicHealth and sharing important information, I have a personal story to share about my family's experience with #COVID19. 🧵

1/20

Last weekend, we drove to see close family members and stayed with them in their home for 24 hours. Both of them are adults who have been fully vaccinated with the #Pfizer #vaccine. My partner and I are also fully Pfizer vaxxed.

2/20

My 2 children are too young to be vaccinated. But, because we drove (i.e., no high passenger travel), were staying with 2 other fully vaxxed adults, and did not go anywhere else but their home, we thought it was a low risk activity to spend time together indoors, unmasked.

3/20

On Saturday night, one of the #vaccinated adults developed a mild cough. So mild that if we were not presently going through a #pandemic, it would have raised very little concern. On Sunday after we left, this individual developed a fever.

4/20

On Monday, this individual tested positive for #COVID19. The other individual in the home became symptomatic on Wednesday.

5/20

Because we suspected that our family had a high-risk #COVID19 exposure when we returned home, we chose to #quarantine our children on Monday and not send them back to their summer program until we knew more information.

6/20

One of our children became symptomatic on Tuesday and the other became symptomatic on Wednesday. Both my partner and I were still asymptomatic at that point. I was told to keep working while I remained asymptomatic per #CDC and #PublicHealth guidelines.

7/20

On Thursday after I got home from work, I became symptomatic. My symptoms have progressively worsened since then. The kiddos both have been quite sick but they are now improving. I am stable but am definitely unwell. All 3 of us have tested positive for #COVID19.

8/20

My partner has tested negative thus far, but he became symptomatic last night, so I suspect that he simply didn't have a detectible viral load yet when he was first tested.

9/20

Punch line: our family made it this far into the #pandemic before getting infected from 1 other fully #vaccinated adult by spending time indoors unmasked. Throughout the pandemic, we have been very cautious, followed all guidelines, and thought we were being safe.

10/20

We now have at least 3/4 fully #vaccinated adults in this story who have developed breakthrough infections and likely 1 more on the way. We also now have 2 children who got infected from 1 fully #vaccinated adult.

11/20

I'm relieved that we chose to #quarantine the kiddos with our suspicion that they had been exposed. Had we made a different choice, we could've potentially exposed many unvaccinated children to #COVID19. I would never want anyone's kid to feel the way mine have this week.

12/20

This is concerning from a #PublicHealth perspective. I have no idea if we were infected with the #Delta variant. If you've stopped masking, social distancing, & limiting your stay when in the presence of (even few) others indoors, you may want to consider starting again.

13/20

#Masks provide added protection & it doesn't hurt to wear one (no, not even if you have a mask phobia - I've treated that a lot this past year, but that's a thread for another time). It's just like wearing a hat when you go into the woods to prevent a tick bite.

14/20

Maybe you wouldn't have gotten bitten by a tick, but the hat does not hurt anything and provides a layer of protection that could prevent you from contracting Lyme disease. Clearly, it's worth it to wear the hat. Wearing a mask to prevent #COVID19 is no different.

15/20

I am very grateful that all the adults in this story are #FullyVaccinated. I cannot imagine how much worse this would have been without the vaccines leading us to have relatively mild infections.

16/20

One thing that really strikes me is that most of this experience has come from a position of high privilege. While this illness has been unsettling & uncomfortable & has meant LOTS of canceled plans, we've been able to manage it & it has mostly been a big inconvenience.

17/20

We have jobs where we will still be employed after we get through this. We have amazing family & friends who have reached out to check-in, delivered care packages to our home, & dropped off home cooked meals. No words are sufficient to express the gratitude I have.

18/20

I can't imagine what this would've been like without these privileges, resources, & #community. We need to take care of each other & our communities. We can only beat this #pandemic if we take a collective approach to well-being & include the safety of #unvaccinated ppl.

19/20

Please, let's have compassion for our collective humanity & let's get through this together. Wishing all of you health & safety.

#COVID19 #VaccinesSaveLives #VaccinesWork #BreakThroughCases #community #PublicHealth #Pandemic

20/20