Ask A Genius 1477: COVID-19 Recovery, Gun Violence in America, and Life Lessons from Los Angeles
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/08/07
Rick Rosner shares his ongoing recovery from COVID-19, including a rebound in positive tests and mild symptoms managed with Paxlovid and metformin. He discusses America’s gun violence crisis, highlighting incidents he witnessed in Los Angeles, such as a bar shooting and a road rage attack. Rosner reflects on absurdities in his LinkedIn profile and his concerns about long-term viral effects. The conversation covers personal anecdotes, societal commentary, and a glimpse into urban American life.
Rick Rosner: This is day fourteen since I first tested positive for COVID-19. I had a couple of negative test results after finishing Paxlovid. Still, then I started testing positive again a few days later. A doctor suggested it could be due to viral RNA fragments, non-infectious cellular debris. But it is unclear. Some research indicates these rebound positives could be remnants, while others suggest they might still be infectious.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So you’re not sure if you’re contagious now?
Rosner: No, I am not. I am still isolating in the attic to avoid infecting my wife. It’s oddly convenient for workouts—my bed is next to a weight machine. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I sometimes do a couple of sets before going back to sleep. My stool has changed colour too—slightly orange, for whatever that’s worth.
Jacobsen: How would you describe your symptoms over the past two weeks?
Rosner: Two days before I tested positive, I had chills for about 30 minutes. The next day, I felt normal. Then I developed a sore throat and some coughing. I tested positive and started Paxlovid immediately.
Jacobsen: And since then?
Rosner: Most symptoms improved quickly. Now it’s just mild stuff—an occasional cough, some sneezing, maybe a brief sore throat here and there. I am also on metformin. Some studies suggest it may reduce viral load or the risk of long COVID. One study in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas showed a roughly 40–50% reduction in long COVID risk.
Jacobsen: So you’re not too worried about the symptoms?
Rosner: Not the surface symptoms. What concerns me is the possibility of cumulative internal damage—microscopic inflammation or long-term tissue effects. Just because the symptoms are light doesn’t mean the virus is not harming.
Jacobsen: Want to go through your résumé?
Rosner: No. Why would I?
Jacobsen: I meant the funny stuff on your LinkedIn.
Rosner: I haven’t looked at that in a while. Back when I had a job, I took it seriously. But when I stopped expecting to be hired through LinkedIn, I got more playful with it.
Jacobsen: You had some pretty creative titles.
Rosner: Yeah. I listed all the colleges where I posed nude for art classes—dozens. I wrote things like “I was naked here,” which confused some people. They thought I worked there as faculty. Bad reading comprehension, I guess.
Jacobsen: Didn’t you also say something about being a gay bar bouncer?
Rosner: Yeah, that was in there. It fit the character—semi-weird, semi-true. At one point, a bunch of people were viewing my profile. I saw it in the stats, so I clicked it myself and re-read it. It was amusing.
Jacobsen: Do you still have access?
Rosner: Not on this computer. But yeah, we can go through that another time if you want. Maybe tomorrow.
Jacobsen: Let’s shift to news. What happened with Trump recently?
Rosner: Trump was at an event doing his usual YMCA dance—you know, the one that looks like he’s jerking off two guys. He also said something about military power and nuclear weapons. Nothing about placing missiles on the White House, however. That part was satire.
Jacobsen: So more spectacle?
Rosner: Pretty much. Classic Trump deflection. People are still pressuring him about his ties to Epstein. To be clear: he was associated with Epstein socially, but there have been no formal charges linking him to sexual abuse of minors in that context.
Jacobsen: Did you hear about the Fort Stewart shooting?
Rosner: Yes.
Jacobsen: On August 5, a U.S. Army sergeant allegedly shot and wounded five fellow soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The base commander said the motive remains unknown. Thoughts?
Rosner: The U.S. has about 330 million people and around 400 million privately owned guns. Statistically, incidents like this are inevitable. We lead the developed world in gun ownership and also in gun-related violence. We average about 100 gun-related deaths per day in the United States—more than 36,000 people a year.
Roughly half of those are suicides. That is still a staggering number, so people are inevitably going to get shot. I do not know. Depending on how you define a mass shooting, we average about one mass shooting per day. I no longer find this unusual.
What is remarkable is when no one dies in a mass shooting—that is the good news. I do not think anyone died in the Fort Stewart case, surprisingly. We have an enormous number of guns in circulation.
Rosner: Have you ever actually seen bullets fly?
Jacobsen: No, not in combat. I was in Ukraine, but I did not see any live fire, merely drones and ballistic missiles. I did fire weapons there—fired a .50 calibre sniper rifle, a Beretta, a shotgun, rifles.
Rosner: I have only seen bullets fly in the street once. It happened in Venice, California, when I was working the door at a bar. Someone did something in traffic that pissed off a gang. Maybe it was a cyclist—hard to say precisely. It was at night, and they took a shot at him. You could see the spark as the bullet ricocheted off the street. I have worked in other bars where people got shot in the parking lot, but I was not there when it happened.
Jacobsen: Any other incidents?
Rosner: Yes, I was at the YMCA working out when a guy staggered in with two bullet wounds. He and his girlfriend had gotten into an altercation in a drive-thru at a Taco Bell, about half a mile from the Y, in North Hollywood —a not-so-nice area. The people in the other car had an AR-15-style rifle. They shot up his car.
One of the bullets went clean through his forearm—a .22 calibre round, which I had not realized could be fired from a semi-auto rifle like that. He was bleeding and clearly in shock. He managed to drive the car away but then crashed into the YMCA sign and staggered inside, repeating, “I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot.”
We had him sit down and told him help was on the way. He was freaked out, understandably, and bleeding all over the place. The bullet hole in his arm was about the diameter of a pencil. If it had been a larger calibre, like a .32, the damage would have been much worse. Still, this sort of thing is probably par for the course in a city like Los Angeles—life of an American town right now.
Jacobsen: Road rage is a thing in L.A. People in L.A. shoot each other over traffic disputes.
Rosner: That is why my wife hates it when I yell at other drivers. It does increase your chances of getting shot, which, fortunately, has not happened to me, yet. I don’t yell often, but I sometimes scream at drivers when I am a pedestrian. There’s a crosswalk near a gym I frequent where people usually run the stop sign. I have yelled at them. I have hit their cars. It is a bad idea.
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