flavor 8

Notes about things

Joining the Conference

I use uberconference to do the interviews. We’ll coordinate a time that works for you, and I’ll send you conference information. It will look like this (I’ve blurred out specifics):

You can either use the phone number or the browser link. If you use the phone number, you’ll be prompted for the PIN, and then we can just talk. In this scenario your phone number will be displayed to me in uberconference’s UI, so if you care about that, use the browser link instead, and then you’ll be fully anonymous.

When joining with the browser link, you’ll be prompted to give uberconference access to your microphone. Once you have, you can click “settings”, and test whether the mic / speakers are working by talking. You can also turn off your video camera using the button at the bottom of the screen.

Your Identity

I’ll keep these interviews as anonymous as you like.

In terms of giving you an identity, my preference would be something like “J.B., 25/M, Wisconsin, US”; we could also go with “John B, 25/M, Wisconsin, US”. If you prefer a pseudonym, I won’t know any different :), so just tell me which you prefer.

IF you are comfortable sharing any photos (e.g. you in hospital), that’d be awesome and I’d love to include them. If not, totally fine.

Your Review

I’ll send you a draft before I make it public. Anything you want to change, remove, or edit, just let me know at that time. If you have regrets at that point and want to strike the whole thing, that’s fine.

Questions

This is not a gotcha interview :), so I’m including the questions here so that you can see roughly the structure of the conversation. Of course, I may add questions if there are interesting tangents to your story. If you feel uncomfortable with any question, we can skip it, and I promise not to ask any further along those lines. I will try to keep the interview to 20-25 minutes, so I may skip questions too in the interest of time.

Please be frank and honest. There’s no judgement here. Your experience will help others.

A) Early Pandemic & Lockdown

  1. When and how did you first hear about COVID?
  2. When did you realize it was a serious situation?
  3. Did you go into lockdown / quarantine at that point?
  4. (If so) what was lockdown like for you? What was your routine? How many people do you guess you interacted with?
  5. Did you manage to keep your job while in lockdown?
  6. Were you treating it as a high risk situation?

B) Your Infection & Symptoms

  1. When did you first suspect you might have become infected? What were the initial signs for you?
  2. Do you know how you got infected?
  3. How long elapsed (from first symptoms) before you got a test? Did you go see a doctor?
  4. How did the symptoms progress for you?
  5. What were your worst symptoms?
  6. If you’ve had flu in the past, how would you compare it to flu?
  7. Did you need hospitilization? If so, what was that like?
  8. What was the most surprising symptom to you?
  9. How long before some of your symptoms started to improve?
  10. How long before you considered yourself reasonably recovered?
  11. Between getting infected, and noticing symptoms, do you think you interacted with anybody? Do you know if they got infected?
  12. Were any of your household or family members also infected? How are they doing?

C) Background / Recovery

  1. Do you have anybody in your life who didn’t think COVID was a big deal? Did they change their mind after you got infected?
  2. Now that you are “recovered”, do you have any persistent symptoms?
  3. What’s life like for you now? Are you back in lockdown?
  4. What would you tell people who aren’t treating COVID seriously?
  5. Anything else you’d like to tell people about your story?