I don't know about you, but all of a sudden, I seem to know a number of people with COVID

in a way that hasn't happened in a while.

Whether it's colleagues or friends or even Instagram acquaintances, posting pictures

of those two telltale lines on an antigen test.

It made me want to call up Catherine Wu, a science writer at The Atlantic, to figure

out what's going on.

She recently wrote a story asking whether we're in for one more COVID summer, and I wondered

if she knew people with COVID now, too.

So I am hearing all of the sort of hearsay epidemiology that you're talking about, but

I, for some reason, either don't have enough friends, I don't know what, but for some reason,

my bubble is so far okay.

I used to be someone who woke up in the morning and checked case counts either through my local

health department or in the newspaper or on a website, and I don't have that to check

anymore.

I feel like right now I'm sort of going off of vibes.

How are the vibes?

It really depends on who you ask, which I think is so interesting about this particular

moment.

I agree with you.

I definitely don't check the official counts as often as I used to, and I'm largely relying

on, I guess, what my semi-private whisper network is talking about.

But there's a couple of reasons for that, right?

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