Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

 My wife had an experience in the past couple of weeks which illustrates that after almost a year, we still have not figured out how to contain this pandemic.  The scientists have figured out a lot about this virus but we have not used the knowledge we have acquired and turned that into actions that will decrease infections and thus save lives.

My wife volunteers at a free clinic one or two days a week.  She was contacted by the clinic on a Saturday that one of her fellow volunteers had tested positive for COVID.  My wife had last worked at the clinic on Monday before this.  She had brief contact with that fellow volunteer but she believed it was less than 15 minutes and both were wearing masks.  So it is unlikely that my wife would have been infected.

My wife checked the protocol for this and was told that she should quarantine for 2 weeks from that Monday.  If she has no symptoms during the two weeks, then she should get tested after to be sure she is negative.  The quarantine is right, but I don't see the benefit of getting the test after the quarantine is over.  The most infectious time after exposure is from 4 to 10 days.  So ideally she should get tested as soon as she found out about the positive test of her co-worker.  This way, if she is positive, she can warn the people she had contact with from Monday to Saturday of that week.  Getting a test after two weeks of quarantine would not help anyone she had contact with during those first five days.  (The only contacts she had during that time was mainly me.  We saw couple of friends but we were outside and wore masks.)

The ideal thing would have been that we can get quick antigen tests which would give us results right away.  We should have been able to test daily from day 5 (Saturday) until at least day 10.  If there is a positive result then we should have gone in for a PCR test to confirm.  But we cannot get the antigen test and the county told us not to go in for the PCR test until after the quarantine is over.

So after the 14 days was over, my wife went to get tested.  She waited in line for 40 minutes and then was told that they had run out of tests and to come back another day!  Two days later she went back and got tested.  She finally got the expected negative result 4 days after that.  I ask:  What good is it to get a test result 20 days after the exposure?  She was not going to infect anyone after two weeks even if she had been infected herself.  The testing timeline is not according to the best scientific data, in my opinion.  There is not availability of the quick antigen test.  If we are still depending on the PCR tests, at least have them available at all times and have turn around times of no more than one day.  Otherwise, tests are not doing much good.

Also there was no contact tracing.  My wife got the news from her clinic.  There was no contact from the county health department.  We had to inquire ourselves about the protocol, which is not correct, in my opinion.  I am wondering, given this lack of on time testing and contact tracing, if the infection counts in my county or elsewhere in the nation is anywhere near correct.

Well, maybe the vaccines will eventually bail us out.  But meanwhile, unnecessary infections and deaths are bound to continue.  The authorities are still not doing a good job almost a year into this.  A large portion of the public are also not doing their part by wearing masks and social distancing.  This is still going to be a bad winter and spring, unfortunately.