Did i murder someone?

[Ironborn]

Good day everyone, I hope you can or want to listen to my story / question with some understanding.

The thing is, I'm having a pretty severe revival of my OCD.

This is about covid.

I have not had a vaccine yet due to personal considerations. Now it is true that on October 12 I got mild throat complaints while I was at work, I thought nothing of this. The next day the complaints were so much more that I had myself tested in the morning and it was therefore positive.

Now I worked with a colleague at the office the day before, and I immediately informed this colleague the next day after my positive test. For the convenience of this story, let's just call this colleague 'A' for a moment.

I then stayed at home for 2 weeks to sick it out. 

About 2 weeks later we had a covid outbreak at another location 30 minutes drive from where I had been in the office with Person A on October 12th. This corona outbreak has infected a number of people, one of whom unfortunately died on November 26, this man was 66 years old, and had not had himself vaccinated due to his own considerations. Let's call this person person "B" for convenience.

I didn't see or talk to this person B the day I got symptoms, or the days before. However, person A who has been in a room with me on October 12 is occasionally in contact with person B.

So now I have the idea that I made person B sick and that makes me a murderer. Person B can of course also have contracted the virus in his own private environment or via another route.

Now there is also another person in this story and that is a direct colleague of person B. For the sake of convenience I will call this person person 'C'. These 2 people sit together in the office every day in one room.

Both people have chosen not to be vaccinated.

Person C appeared to be walking around the workplace with a snot nose in the week of October 25 without being tested or the like. However, on November 1, person B and person C plus a number of other colleagues there had themselves tested on location and they were all positive.

Person B became ill on 1 November, ended up in IC a week later and eventually died on 26 November.

I am now constantly figuring out whether my infection on October 12 may have ended up with person B. I don't estimate the probability that high because on that one day (October 12) I was working in a completely different location. When I discovered the virus, I immediately called colleague A the next day, and he would keep an eye on whether he was suffering from anything, but he later indicated that he had not noticed anything, and that he had not been ill.

What is the chance that I have infected person A. He brought the virus to the other location without symptoms and infected person B, person C, or someone else there, which ultimately led to the death of person B?

By the way, I am now convinced that as soon as my recovery certificate expires next October, I will just take the vaccine. I just can't live with my OCD which constantly drives me crazy that I'm a potential killer.

I hope for some understanding in my story. Even though I am not vaccinated, I am always very careful when dealing with others. I have had myself tested up to 5 times as much over the past 2 years than the average person in my environment, and I also regularly perform self-tests.

Anyone have any idea how I can deal with this?

Spoiler

 

 

[malina]

Hi @Ironborn,

I'm sorry that you're going through this stress and that you had to deal with getting covid. First off, I think you should be aware that the vaccine doesn't completely stop you from transmitting covid. I am not saying that you shouldn't get it, I have been vaccinated myself and would encourage others too, but if you feel guilty for this reason in particular, you shouldn't.

Also, I don't think you could ever possibly know how the virus spread at your workplace, no matter how many connections you link in your head. What you need to keep in mind is that you did your due diligence - once you got symptoms, you got tested, you told your colleague about the positive result and self isolated. This is all any of us can do under these circumstances. Is your colleague (Person A) sitting around, wrecking himself with guilt and feeling like a murderer? Because technically he knew he had come into contact with someone infected with covid and perhaps should have gotten tested as well? I don't want to blame anyone, but just to show you that you are not solely responsible for anything that happened and that other people (who don't have OCD) don't react in the same way.

So whatever happened, you are definitely not a murderer. We are all living under the same circumstances, any of us could have gotten infected without even knowing it and spread it to others, even people who are vulnerable. The best any of us can do it to act responsibly if we know we have come into contact with covid (either by having symptoms or through another person) and you did all the right things.

[PolarBear]

How you should deal with this is stop dealing with it. Stop trying to figure out if this, if that. Leave it alone.

And get vaccinated. 

[Ironborn]

14 hours ago, PolarBear said:

How you should deal with this is stop dealing with it. Stop trying to figure out if this, if that. Leave it alone.

And get vaccinated. 

The problem is im only reading you last sentence: 'and get vaccinated' which implies to me that all that was said before can be ignored because vaccination would have prevented this. 

On the other hand ive been thinking that maybe if i was vaccinated and someone might got infected trough me, i still would feel like a murderer and came here to ask for support? 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Ironborn

[Tamagochi]

I think that your OCD is making you to interpret things in the way that confirms that possibility that freaks you out the most.

My interpretation of the words “ get vaccinated” is just that the person who wrote it down generally believe in vaccines as tool or resource to fight against viruses. 
 

You will never know what was the “vector” virus that attack the person who died. Nobody will ever know it or even try to figure it out.

The murder is the ******* virus and not the innocent people (with or without vaccine) who transmitted the virus unintentionally. For sure you and most of us have been involved in the transmission change of any Coronavirus or any other viruses (like flu…) which finally killed someone. But this is just because we are part of a system where life and death are part of it. 
 

The main point here is that the viral transmissions between humans are mostly INTENTIONALLY (with or without vaccines), and almost unavoidable unless you decide to live in a continuous lock down totally isolated and sterilised from other which would be really insane.

Different story would be that you knowing yourself infected try to infect others on purpose, but this is not your case and not the case of 99% of humans involved in viral transmissions.

I hope it helps.

[Tamagochi]

Sorry,

I meant “Unintentionally” and not “intentionally” as I wrote down in the post above.