If I’m honest with myself, once I decided to go, it felt like I’d committed to taking on some risk. And I think I didn’t want to know too much. There would be no anti-vaxxers among the guests, and the invitation said they’d follow the local public-health protocols. My friend is a doctor, and I knew the crowd would mostly be New York and California people. I still was not precisely sure how the wedding would work, COVID-wise. Read: How easily can vaccinated people spread COVID?Īs the day approached, my wife and I had not run through every scenario. Filled with a surge of love for my friends and New Orleans and a sense that, you know what, I’m ready to nose out into a new tier of risk, I booked a flight I’d be going solo. The really vulnerable were getting boosters. The Delta-variant surge was easing in most places. I saw laughing, maskless people in my social-media feeds and in restaurant windows. The radio station where I host a show was encouraging people to come back into the office. Everything was beginning to seem more and more normal. I put off RSVPing one way or the other, and thought I would end up passively not going, the slow slide into a never-booked flight.īut for some reason, one morning in early October, I got the “last call” email about the wedding and I revisited the prospect.
![the layover new orleans the layover new orleans](https://neworleansopera.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Job-Opp-Cover-Pic-1024x576.png)
I went back and forth, looking at flights and realizing that I’d probably have to travel through Las Vegas and have a considerable layover. My wife is vaccinated, and our young children’s risk of serious illness, while not nonexistent, is very low. I would be fine, and even if I gave the coronavirus to any of my family members, they too would almost certainly be fine. COVID was unlikely to kill me, a vaccinated 39-year-old endurance athlete. One could not expect to not get exposed to COVID.īut then I reasoned both with myself and with my wife. But breakthrough cases happen, and we’d be in New Orleans in October, a place where cases were still high and vaccination was inconsistent. Sure, I’m vaccinated-two shots of Pfizer-and the wedding’s other attendees would all be vaccinated too. The downside, of course, was the risk of exposure to COVID. The notion of a trip there shone out of the fog and dreariness of this whole era of history. New Orleans is a miraculous place, and my favorite city to visit in America. I hadn’t seen him since before the pandemic. As a bonus, the wedding would take place in New Orleans, where my friend lives. His wedding had been put off repeatedly because of COVID, and this was the couple’s second try at a real ceremony. My best friend had gone through a tough divorce and was remarrying.
![the layover new orleans the layover new orleans](https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/699x268/zlwS4gE_PhJcn8o8OuAOPp_iH2j4b36wQ1WU8-uHKyc.jpg)
When I first received the invitation to the wedding where I would eventually get COVID, I was on the fence about attending at all.