The Blind Leading the Blind
The lines to the supermarkets keep growing longer. It must be the nice weather combined with rising cabin fever that is propelling people to regard queuing as an exciting activity. I can’t say that I share this passion, especially not when the line takes 2.5 hours. To the contrary, it’s terribly boring. No one socialises in the queue, as it’s now common to regard everyone with suspicion. A conversation with a stranger could be contagious. So, you stand there minding your own business, bored out of your gourd. A series of Apps have sprung up that give you the average waiting time at your local store, but from my experience they are pretty inaccurate. Occasionally I contemplate purchasing one of those cheap drones to send ahead to check the queue status for me.
It’s been a while since I’ve written about my friend Frank. You will recall that he tested positive for Covid19 several weeks ago. There has been an interesting twist to his story, so I’ve asked him to give us an update which I have summarised below:
I’d like to start by recapping the key events of my infection, because in recent days I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions. You’ll see why. At the beginning of March, I had had very light symptoms that disappeared fairly quickly, but one night I started having difficulty breathing and ended up at the ER and was tested for Covid19. On the 18th of March my Covid19 test result came back positive. After a few days in the hospital I was sent home to quarantine for 14 days, at the end of which I would be retested. The doctors called me twice a day to check my temperature and saturation levels. On the 6th of April I was retested for Covid19. The test came back negative. As per protocol I was retested after 48 hours and unfortunately the test came back positive. I therefore have to continue my quarantine and be tested again in a few weeks.
To summarise: 30 days from when I started having mild symptoms, I am still positive. This makes we wonder about the guidelines, which suggest that people who have mild symptoms, even if they have not been tested, should quarantine for 15 days. Even according to the WHO and other scientific organisations, people who have had mild symptoms only need wait 15 days before they go out again. I just don’t understand based on what information we are assuming that these people are not contagious and can go out, to the grocery store, the pharmacy or even go back to work? How do we know that they are not still Covid19 positive? Perhaps infections not slowing down enough because of situations like these? These are questions to which we need urgent and precise answers so that we can eliminate all of these medical and social uncertainties.
I think you’ll agree with me that Frank’s story is perplexing. Of course, it’s only one data point and who knows, he may be an outlier, but it underlines one of my key theories. We simply don’t know very much about this virus. Also, what about this test? Is it reliable? Until we know more, we are really asking our leaders to make a lot of blind decisions. So, no wonder they sometimes make weird decisions. For example, according to the latest decree issued yesterday, as of April 14th, other than bookstores, a few other stores will be allowed to reopen. Namely, stores for babies and pet shops (selling small domestic animals). I suppose everybody needs a gerbil right now.