I caught COVID on a cruise and still had a wonderful time

No one likes to talk about COVID much anymore.

Our various governments don't publicise the weekly statistics as they did before and most people aren't interested in them, despite infections rising again. There are no mask mandates. It's only "suggested" that you quarantine if you catch it.

And there are few testing centres and no subsidies for the RATs we need to take to monitor ourselves. It's magical thinking on one level. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't really exist, in the way we don't really make a big deal when we get a cold. Everyone wants it to be "just a cold" and that's the language we now use.

The vaccines are wonderful, and they've given us a high level of protection, if we keep them updated. But many people have long COVID and among those who have recovered from seemingly mild bouts, many have lingering health issues, which you don't get from a cold. Still, even writing about it feels redundant because we've thought and worried about the disease for three years. COVID fatigue is real and people now "want to get on with life".

Since lockdowns ended, travellers have had to weigh up the risks of travelling in a time of plague, and most of us (including me) have decided that the risk is worth it. One troubling thing about the pandemic has been the way it distanced people from each other, and travel is driven by the human need to connect with humanity on a broad stage.

It's healing and we need plenty of that. I suspect we're more sanguine about our chances of getting COVID while overseas because most of us have now had it once, at least. It has been demystified to a certain extent. Most countries have dropped any obligation on the part of the traveller to test and quarantine if they do get it, so it's a less scary proposition to test positive away from home.

I was on a river cruise on the Mekong three months ago when I finally tested positive. I'd caught it on the first international flight I'd taken after mask mandates were dropped. I started to feel chills after a day out in Phnom Penh and tested positive that night. I spent the next five days of the cruise seeing Vietnam from my bed. It went like most people's experiences with the Omicron variant.

A whopping headache for two days, some sneezing and sniffling. It wasn't pleasant but I recovered quickly. As far as I could find out, no one else on the cruise caught it from me. I had lived in fear of this moment and yet it didn't ruin my trip, which is what I'd expected. In fact, I was exceptionally lucky to be on a cruise, in a beautiful suite, with room service whenever I needed anything, from paracetamol to pho. The two picture windows opened to form a balcony and I had plenty of fresh air, clean water (delivered to my doorstep) and entertainment on the TV screens.

It was in fact one of the nicest cruises I've been on, as the sights and sounds of the Mekong wafted into the suite. I'm not downplaying the severity of the disease. And I am doing my darnedest not to get it a second time, because my chances of chronic illness increase with every incidence.

We may be "over it" but I'm not sure it's over us. Those early images of "plague ships" and hard hotel quarantine no longer reflect the reality of cruising and touring. Even so, travel means putting yourself repeatedly in situations where you're in close contact with other people, so you might be unlucky, even armed with vaccinations. But you might catch norovirus too (even if it's less likely than it was before COVID). Life is a constant risk assessment and travellers do this every time they leave for the airport.

lee.tulloch@traveller.com.auI