I moved to South Korea at the very start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking back on the posts I’ve written about the precautions we’ve taken here in South Korea, I’m a little disappointed I didn’t write more about all the little things that are now at the edge of my periphery. I remember going on different, assigned days to buy face masks, but I hardly remember how long it was that we could only go into bigger shops or cafes with either a QR code proving that we’d had the vaccination or a negative RAT test taken within the last 48 hours, which made things difficult for my friend who had not had the vaccination. At one point, it was muscle memory to pull up KakaoTalk on my phone and give my phone a good shake to pull up my QR code to scan in.
The following four articles are the ones I’ve written about Covid-19 in South Korea.
What I did not write about was how terrified I was of catching Covid, not for the fear of catching a possibly deadly virus, but for the shame that would have been paired with the diagnosis. There were stories of foreign teachers flouncing curfews and and other meeting rules, catching Covid, and then being fired from their jobs. There was this incredible shame around getting Covid, like “maybe you shouldn’t have gone out to that cafe even though you did take out and never took your mask off.” I’ve read that Korea is often seen as a “shame” culture (as compared to the United States and other Christian-ish countries being “guilt” cultures) and “in shame cultures it is not doing what is shameful so much as getting caught that matters.” (pg. 34, The Korean Mind: Understanding Contemporary Korean Culture)
I was worried that any interaction I had would end up being The One That Gave Me Covid and cost me–literally, both in terms of loss of pay as well as time spent in isolation, and even, quite possibly, my job. The last thing I wanted to do was catch Covid, be fired, and have to return to the mess that was the United States at that time.
But as time went on, things started to ease up. It took us several weeks after the official announcement, but fewer and fewer people are wearing masks on public transportation, and one day several months ago, our teachers were told to take our masks off unless we or a student were sick. Catching Covid went from being a red-button-pushing, alarm-blaring situation to a more mainstream, “ssshh don’t tell anyone but yeah, they caught Covid.” If a teacher at my school had caught Covid in 2020 or 2021, school would have been closed for a week or two, the other teachers would have had to be tested, and every parent would have been informed. Nowadays, if a teacher catches Covid, they simply have to miss a few days of work while spent in isolation while other teachers cover their classes. No one informs anyone of the infected teacher’s status, but I can imagine that the students can figure it out why their teacher was absent for a few days and returns wearing a mask.
I will find out, as I tested positive for Covid last Thursday, September 14th.
About a month ago, I started CPAP therapy and chalked up my sore throat to the fact that pressurized air was being pushed down my pipes all night. On Wednesday, I finally decided to go to the local clinic to have the doctor take a look at a skin tag that I’ve had in my eyelash line that had turned black and was starting to bother me. He told me to see an opthamologist and I left.
The next morning when I woke up, my throat was really, really sore, so I decided that I would drag myself back to the clinic, second day in a row, and make sure everything was fine, maybe ask for them to test for strep. Several of my students have been sick but I don’t know with what, and I’m notorious for catching strep. The first thing the doctor did was order a Covid test, and I thought, oh no, not this again. I like the staff of the clinic, they’re all very nice and caring, but you can tell they’re not used to doing hundreds of Covid tests so the tests they give are actually painful.
I didn’t even entertain the possibility of having Covid. When I came down with a really bad illness that lasted for a couple of months back in March, I did think it was Covid, but all my results were negative. When I went in to see the doctor again on Thursday after the Covid test, I noticed that he hesitated before telling me my results, whereas in the past he’s immediately told me that I was negative.
I was in shock to find out that I was positive. My only symptom at that point was a sore throat. I was literally just going to get it checked out, maybe get some meds, go to the post office to mail some books, and then go into work, and now you’re telling me I have to go straight home and isolate?
I’m really fortunate I went to the doctor when I did because I immediately crashed and spent the first two days in and out of sleep, tossing and turning and burning up with a sore throat and dry cough. Friday night I couldn’t sleep and kept waking up every hour with Merlin staring at me in the face. I decided to go back to the clinic on Saturday because I was just so dang hot and miserable.
My temperature was high, so the nurse made me sit in a chair in the hallway, away from the other two patients in the clinic. Initially, the doctor ordered a flu test but while I was walking out of his room, the nurse came into the hallway and loudly shouted, “But she tested positive for Corona!” One of the patients gave me a funny look and I just shuffled away back to my spot in the hallway until they called me to get a chest x-ray. HIPAA, who?
I got a little of my energy back on Saturday, enough to shower and eat. One thing I like about medicine in Korean is that it’s really cheap compared to medicine in America. One thing I dislike is the quality of medication that I’ve been given. You are frequently only given 3 days of any one medication, forcing you to go back to the doctor should you still feel bad, and in my experience, every prescription comes with a bonus “this will protect your stomach” prescription. (From the Papago translation of my last two prescriptions: a “gastric mucosal protective agent.”) The meds I was given for Covid amounted to nothing more than Tylenol, another kind of painkiller, a phlegm remover, and cough syrup.
When I woke up Sunday morning, the first thing I noticed when I looked in the mirror was that my skin tag was magically gone. It must have been starved of blood and fell off, so that’s one less problem I have to deal with.
I went back to the clinic on Monday (this morning) to take another test because my boss told me that if it was negative, I could return to work, but I was told by the doctor that I will continue to test positive for a while and should try to rest and isolate for at least two or three more days. Unfortunately, I have to return to work on Tuesday even though I’m still not feeling 100%. The good news is that I only have a few classes with the older students so it should be okay.
It’s back to wearing a mask for me, at least for the next couple of weeks.
Wash your hands, folks, and stay masked up in certain places, like public transportation, doctor’s offices, and places where there has been an outbreak. The pandemic is not over yet.
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