America is in for a lot more breakthrough infections. Here’s what to do if you fall sick.

My breakthrough infection started with a scratchy throat just a few days before Thanksgiving. Because I’m vaccinated, and had just tested negative for COVID-19 two days earlier, I initially brushed off the symptoms as merely a cold. Just to be sure, I got checked again a few days later. Positive. The result felt like a betrayal after 18 months of reporting on the pandemic. And as I walked home from the testing center, I realized that I had no clue what to do next.

I had so many questions: How would I isolate myself in a shared apartment? And why for 10 days, like the doctor at the testing site had advised? Should I get tested again? Following the doctor’s orders, my partner—who had tested negative—dragged a sleeping bag to the couch. Masks came on, windows went up, and flights were canceled. I ate flavorless dinners on my side of the apartment. One by one, the symptoms I knew so well on paper made their real-life debut: cough, fever, fatigue, and a loss of smell so severe, I couldn’t detect my dog’s habitually fishy breath.

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