Throat and Nasal Passages
Throat and Nasal Passages
[A graph with two curves are shown. The Y-axis ends in an arrow, but has no units or ticks. The X-axis has no arrow but has 23 ticks with every fifth longer and every tenth labeled. The first tick extends the Y-axis below the X-axis. Both curves start over the second tick and end over the last tick. One curve is a dotted straight line running along the bottom of the graph just above the X-axis. The other start a bit higher and oscillate a bit up and down with 19 sharp peaks and 19 troughs, where some of the troughs have extra features, and not all are equidistant. After this a 20th small peak just starts to drop down again, before the curve goes in to a very steep rise almost all the way to the top of the graph. There is a small dip on the way before it reaches a maximum. Then a deep drop followed by a smaller rise before an even deeper drop. But then at the end, the graph rises almost vertically to the highest point where the graph stops over the last tick. At the top left of the graph the two lines are explained showing a solid and a dotted line with text to their right. Below this, above the solid curve midway between the first two labels on the X-axis, is a label from which 5 arrows points to 5 consecutive peaks.] - How much Time I have spent thinking about my throat and nasal passages, over time ┅ How much I want to think about them Label:Cold/Flu Season X-axis: 2000 2010 2020

This comic is another in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic .  This comic became the last to reference the pandemic for a long time. The next reference to COVID-19 came four months later and in 2615: Welcome Back it was just briefly mentioned in the title text.
In the graph a black solid line displays how much he has been thinking about his throat and nose since 2000 and up until 2022. The first 20 years the graph oscillate up and down once every year, and every spike represents the common cold and flu season. Autumn and winter causes the spike, while spring and summer clearly drops. Perhaps this is indicating no tendency to suffer from hayfever , which might at least produce mini-spikes at the times of of maximum grass-pollen, tree-pollen and/or other similar atmospheric flotsam. There is basically a spike for every year, although some years it looks a bit different which could be variations induced by complex sociological or meteorological drivers - meeting more or fewer people inside stuffy buildings rather than in the open air. But all in all the peaks seem low, especially when compared to how much time he has thought about it since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out around March 2020. Each summer since there has been a dip, but not anywhere close to the tops of the previous years, and around New Year 2022 the graph peaks (likely due to the Omicron variant ).
The peaks in 2020 and 2021 (2022) are about 6 times higher than those the year before 2020. So if the Y-axis begins at zero, this is how much more he thinks of his throat now than during the times when he actually had a cold.
There seems to be no way of knowing if Randall has had COVID-19, but from his comics it seems safe to assume he is fully vaccinated. At the time of release the Omicron variant of COVID-19 seems to by-pass the protections given by vaccines for about 50% of those vaccinated, although vaccinated people generally do not experience severe symptoms.
The joke is in the dotted line at the very bottom of the graph which either is just above zero, or is actually supposed to be the zero line (which would not change the above assumption about 6 times more thinking). This line reflects how much time he actually wishes to think about them, which is probably not at all. But even before corona Randall seems to have spent way too much time pondering his sore throat.
In the title text Randall references the trick known as "You are now aware of your tongue", which is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it will make anyone hearing it involuntarily think and be aware of their tongue. In a much earlier comic, 972: November , this trick was the topic, see more about it there.
Randall sarcastically remarks that the tongue trick needed an element of mortal peril to be truly enjoyable, as with the corona pandemic making him aware of his throat and nasal passages. His actual opinion is probably the opposite, that it was annoying before and that it only became worse now that it contains the danger of death. Being aware of your tongue is annoying, but not dangerous. Being aware of your throat during the COVID-19 pandemic may leave you fearing for your life, even if there is nothing wrong with your throat.
Randall has before the corona pandemic complained about a sore throat caused by the common cold, see 1612: Colds , more than once just a few weeks apart, see 1618: Cold Medicine . See also 1896: Active Ingredients Only .
[A graph with two curves are shown. The Y-axis ends in an arrow, but has no units or ticks. The X-axis has no arrow but has 23 ticks with every fifth longer and every tenth labeled. The first tick extends the Y-axis below the X-axis. Both curves start over the second tick and end over the last tick. One curve is a dotted straight line running along the bottom of the graph just above the X-axis. The other start a bit higher and oscillate a bit up and down with 19 sharp peaks and 19 troughs, where some of the troughs have extra features, and not all are equidistant. After this a 20th small peak just starts to drop down again, before the curve goes in to a very steep rise almost all the way to the top of the graph. There is a small dip on the way before it reaches a maximum. Then a deep drop followed by a smaller rise before an even deeper drop. But then at the end, the graph rises almost vertically to the highest point where the graph stops over the last tick. At the top left of the graph the two lines are explained showing a solid and a dotted line with text to their right. Below this, above the solid curve midway between the first two labels on the X-axis, is a label from which 5 arrows points to 5 consecutive peaks.] - How much Time I have spent thinking about my throat and nasal passages, over time ┅ How much I want to think about them Label:Cold/Flu Season X-axis: 2000 2010 2020
