Minimizing the Blast Radius: How I SRE’ed My COVID Diagnosis in Dublin

The arrow in this picture shows where I was supposed to be during SREcon EMEA 2025 (at Dublin Convention Center!) Instead, I spent the week by myself in my hotel room…

I believe that SRE principles are not just useful in the context of large-scale distributed systems. I know from first-hand experience that you can SRE anything!

Ok. Time to manage the “incident.”

Incident Management Tactics

Here are a few ways that I SRE’ed my on-the-road COVID diagnosis.

1. No Single Points of Failure

Just as we build redundancy into our systems, I took a second test to confirm the first result.

Trust, but verify.

2. Minimizing the Blast Radius

My decision to isolate immediately was a conscious effort to minimize the “blast radius.” I might not be able to contribute to the conference, but I could help protect the community by keeping my germs to myself.

3. Quick Communication

I immediately reached out to the program committee to let them know that I had COVID and would not be able to lead my scheduled session the next.

4. Skip the Heroics

“No Heroes” is a tried and true SRE mantra. SREs have each other’s backs! I didn’t have to be a hero and deal with the situation alone. I reached out to let some of my local colleagues and SRE and non-SRE friends know what was going on.

In the days that followed, I had so many people reach out to check on me and offer to drop off supplies. It was a powerful reminder that in SRE, and in life, we’re stronger together.

5. Further Mitigate the Impact

I also quickly reached out to a few people I’d spent significant time with in the previous week to let them know that they should test themselves and isolate if they happened to have symptoms.

It can be tempting to sweep it under the rug out of fear that people will blame you for potentially making them sick. However, it’s better to ensure they have all the information so they can protect themselves no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Everyone was very understanding.

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This experience was a useful, albeit unexpected, reminder that the principles we apply to our complex distributed systems are just as relevant to our lives.

If only I’d brought binoculars, I could have probably followed the conference, Hitchcock “Rear Window” style, from my hotel room 😅. Instead, I plan to watch the talks that I missed later since SREcon provides open access to all the conference talks online.

My Blameless Retrospective

I posted my reflections above during the conference on Linkedin. Now that a few weeks have passed, I thought it was important to include a proper blameless postmortem.

What went well?

• I brought a COVID test and a few masks with me from Lisbon.
• I found someone locally who was able to use my conference ticket so it didn’t go to waste.
• The program committee found a pair of volunteers to lead the “From Oops to Ops” discussion session. The show did indeed go on.
• A local friend brought me a bunch of FFP2 masks.
• Another friend dropped off dinner (and a little bottle of wine).
• I was able to have a Guinness for Strength thanks to room service.

What did not go well?

• I misinterpreted my intermittent runny nose a few days prior as seasonal allergies.
• I didn’t take a COVID test before traveling to Dublin.
• I wasn’t wearing a mask on the plane or on the bus from the airport to the hotel.

Where did I get lucky?

• I had gotten a really good deal and was staying at the 5-star Marker Hotel. Normally, I don’t stay at hotels this posh when I travel to Dublin. There are definitely worse places to isolate.
• My husband and I weren’t on the same flight. He was planning to join me a couple days later. He was able to cancel his trip and stay home. He never tested positive for COVID.
• My symptoms were very mild. I felt a few aches and pains, the runny nose (for the first couple of days) and fatigue.

As we saw in my previous SRE travel retrospective, the whole point of an SRE-style postmortem is to reflect on what happened and then commit to certain action items (AIs) to help mitigate the risks for the future. The other key element is continuous improvement. The only true failure is one we don’t learn anything from.

Action Items

• Set a reminder to get a COVID booster in 3-6 months.
• Refresh my supply of FFP2 masks and COVID tests.

What I Will Do Differently Next Time?

• If I start having cold or allergy-like symptoms on a plane or other crowded environment that I can’t avoid, I’ll put on a mask right away.
• Even if I suspect it’s just allergies, I’ll do a COVID test before I head to the airport for a trip.

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