In other words, though stale and unwelcomed, I was forced to return to the deliberate, sober, adult world of complicated decisions that are their own silent reward. The entire “what if” scenario appeared in full, the choreography of living with a pandemic with all the tangled concerns: In addition to the mechanics of diagnosis, I had to sort through notifying but not alarming people tiptoeing around my house to keep a distance from my wife trying to anticipate what might need to be canceled in the days ahead, should I be positive on the next morning’s test and feeling draggy but uncertain why. The second drugstore had only a single remaining test on offer from the now picked-over shelves, which I bought with a credit card, not wanting to give over contaminated and infectious and perhaps lethal paper currency to the unwitting cashier. I walked (very) slowly to another one several blocks away. So, to prepare for the days ahead, I headed out to the closest drugstore - where I found that tests were sold out. Opinion: The unnecessary price of Covid-19 Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images I found none.įlowers and photos are left at a memorial for Queens Covid Remembrance Day in Queens, New York, on May 2, 2021. I went through the house looking for masks (found a few) and N95s (found just one) and looked for any test kits that might be hidden away, stacked somewhere in a moment of last year’s supreme epidemiologic overconfidence. Remember? One negative test on the first day of symptoms, especially with the rapid antigen test, is not determinative. I swabbed and swirled, then set a timer and left the room wondering how long and how bad my bout of Covid-19 would be. Opening the home-test kit led to the same sinking feeling from a year ago as I tried to make sense of the instructions until - like last year - I quit reading and simply grabbed the swab. It is a pretty good test but only when taken serially over a few days. The rapid antigen test, which we all had hoped would be relegated to the dustbin of history by now, is not as reliable as the home pregnancy test. Getting facts, of course, is not quite as easy as advertised. We have accepted our responsibility to interrupt the chain of contagion (and we also might grab an antiviral if the illness actually is Covid-19). With Covid-19 (as with home pregnancy testing and little else), we have - most of us - entered the world of facts on demand and the adjustment of social behavior according to the results. And that was when I realized just how different the entire 2023 version of Covid-19 was going to be, no matter its ultimate reach or severity. The days of shrugging off, toughing out and soldiering through a cold or even the flu ended once Covid-19 first arrived. To sort it out, I decided to perform an at-home rapid antigen test. But that’s not what has this infectious disease expert worried Opinion: We’re easing out of the pandemic. Hand of adult woman holding rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19 Westend61/Getty Images
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