Sometimes, even if you don’t believe in a divine plan or the Fates, you must wonder if there’s a purpose to how things play out in the universe. Take the case of Bob Wachter, M.D., a big hoo-ha at the University of California San Francisco, one of the most highly reputed medical schools and hospitals in America. Wachter was out in front when it came to masks and vaccines…yet COVID got him anyway, and quite brutally, too. I don’t wish harm on people, but I can’t help but notice a certain ironic reality to his fate.

Bob Wachter is the Chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine. It’s a big deal position, so he has a lot of heft when it comes to using his position to affect public policy regarding health. He’s also a complete COVID paranoid who acts as if a disease with a survival rate in the high (very, very high) 90 percent area for people who are not immune compromised is the second coming of the Black Death.

A timeline of Wachter’s pronouncements from 2022, when most Americans (at least, most Americans outside of California) had gone back to living a completely normal life, highlights his fear:

Image: Bob Wachter. YouTube screen grab.

March 2022: During a podcast, Wachter expressed his support for the government’s heavy hand (“I thought that vaccine mandates and mas[k] mandates were completely appropriate earlier in the pandemic”), trotting out the usual leftist argument that your behavior affects others. He also asserted that “we know that everybody who has had three vaccine shots are incredibly well protected” as well as how “incredibly protective wearing a good mask is.” While he’s willing to back off of mandatory masking, he’s still totally into masks, except at an indoor (presumably mostly deserted) restaurant.

May 2022: Bob Wachter continues to be sufficiently worried about COVID that he’s not going to abandon his mask:

In last mth, SF has become far less mask-y. At this point, if you've decided you're OK getting Covid (which isn't crazy if vaxxed/boosted), then fine to keep mask off in crowded indoor spaces. If you'd prefer to avoid Covid & have become less cautious, it's time to re-think.(2/4)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) May 2, 2022

I'll now do 100% N95 in crowded indoor spaces. I'll strongly favor outdoor to indoor dining, though will eat indoors in small groups (recognizing it's a risk, but it seems worth it).
You should make your own choice, but do it w/ eyes open: there's a lot of Covid out there.(4/4)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) May 2, 2022

August 2022: Bob Wachter continues to wear masks indoors and will not eat indoors (other than, I assume, in his own home):

Here’s my bottom line (in case this 🧵is TL;DR):
I’ll begin eating inside and removing my mask in most indoor spaces when the local reported case rate falls below 5/100,000/day.

You can find your local rate of cases/100K/day here @nytimes: https://t.co/8y01XeDmyb (2/25)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) August 28, 2022

If you view the above tweets on Twitter, you’ll see that Wachter has an extremely long thread justifying his decision. September 2022: In another endless Twitter thread, Wachter says he might start living a normal life again, which means leaving the mask off (sometimes) and eating at restaurants (sometimes):

Are they low enough to ditch the mask in a crowded & poorly ventilated indoor space or on an airplane? For me, the answer's still no. And would they be low enough in a place w/ >10 cases/100K/d? To me, not yet.
For you? Your call. I hope this helps you think it through. (25/end)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) September 18, 2022

In other words, Wachter is vaxxed up the wazoo and wears a mask just about everywhere. Yet he still got COVID (as did his son and wife, both of whom, presumably, were also vaxxed). Unfortunately for Wachter, he did something any doctor should know better than to do: Feeling sick, he took a very hot shower. That lowers blood pressure for anyone, especially the elderly, so he did what overheated elderly people do, which was to pass out. The results were painful. Because it’s a long thread, I’ve chosen only a few tweets. They’re numbered, so you’ll see where I cut tweets:

I’ve got my 2nd bivalent in April, so my protection against a severe case was still strong, but the 2-3 month window of protection vs. getting Covid had passed. I've let down my guard a bit: still masking on planes & in crowded rooms, but I do now eat and drink indoors. (2/22)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) July 13, 2023

And that’s what happened: I work up in a bloody pool on my bathroom floor. There was a dent in the lid of a trashcan, likely where my head had hit. I remembered nothing. As I managed to get up, it was clear that my face was going to need stitches, and more than a couple. (6/22) pic.twitter.com/mpQDIq7B50

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) July 13, 2023

4) The head CT showed a small subdural hematoma, a little rim of bleeding in the space around the brain. This bought me an overnight stay in the hospital for a repeat scan to ensure the bleeding wasn’t enlarging; it also led to a week of an anti-seizure medication. (9/22)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) July 13, 2023

I hope I’m not guilty of schadenfreude as I retell this. That is, I’m not reveling in Wachter’s suffering. However, as I look at what happened to this man who suffered so badly even after pumping his body full of vaccines that may actually lower immunity and curtailing his life for three years, I can’t help but think of W. Somerset Maugham’s version of the story “The Appointment in Samarrra.” The storyteller is Death, and its moral is that you cannot outrun your fate:

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, “Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.”

The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me [Death] standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, “Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning?”

“That was not a threatening gesture,” I said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”