Well, I have broken down and done something that I vowed to myself, that I would never do. I went and had a covid-19 test. Not just one, but two!!
On the 16th, I am going back to the Big Island. With the current pandemic, Hawaii has gone off the deep end. They have had fewer than 100 deaths – most of which were probably caused by other things like simple old age – that they can tie to covid-19, so they have made it mandatory for anyone coming to the islands to quarantine for 14 days. Before, it was mandatory to quarantine for 14 days locked up in your hotel room and not being allowed out. Their tourist industry went from 30,000 people per week to NONE! Hotels sit empty. Restaurants are closed. Whale watching trips, snorkel trips, sunset cruises, are all shut down. No tourists, and not allowed due to socially distancing rules! People are not allowed on the beach! I did not see this as a problem for me, as I will be “quarantined” at the lot anyway. The problem, is that they will not allow anyone under quarantine to rent a car. How they stop that, I don’t know. I can book and pay for a car on-line, and then pick up the car without any contact with any human, so, how would they know? Without a car, it is difficult to get to the property 75 miles away from the airport! Without a car, getting groceries, and other supplies is difficult. But that is their point, I guess. They do not want me – a potential “Typhoid Mary” to go to the grocery store, or the hardware store. OK, I’ll just take the bus. The bus is scheduled for one pickup at the airport at 4 PM. What if my flight gets there at 5 PM? Also, because of the decrease in riders, the scheduled stop at the airport is cancelled! To get on the bus, you have to get a cab into Kona to get to a bus stop ahead of the bus. The bus makes one trip per day!
But, . . . if you get a negative covid test within 72 hours of departing to Hawaii, you can bypass the quarantine. . . . but it has to be a certain test, and it has to be by one of their “approved” providers and laboratories. They have a list of about a half a dozen approved providers. Walgreens is on the list. The test must be a NAAT test. A Nucleic Acid Amplification Test. Walgreens provides two different ones. But only certain Walgreens provides them. And you have to go online and make an appointment. When on-line, you must fill out a questionnaire to see if you “qualify”. Only six questions – Have you been in contact with anyone who has covid? Do you work in a health care environment? Are you experiencing symptoms?
The test is free. I don’t know who is paying, but I didn’t. And I did not have to provide any insurance card!
One test is a panel type. You get the results in 3 days. The other is what they call an ID Now test. You get the results within 24 hours. From the way I read this on-line, I was under the impression that the only one accepted by Hawaii was the panel one. Which was fine. I would take the test 3 days (72 hours) before my flight, and get my results at about the same time. So, I booked the test at a Walgreens at Extension and University for Friday at 4:45 PM. Then, I got to thinking, “what if it takes longer to get the results?” So I did more research, and found that according to Walgreens, both tests are approved for Hawaii.
So I booked the second one for Saturday at 10:45 AM at Country Club and Baseline. They only give one type of test at certain Walgreens.
On Friday, we went to the Walgreens on University at 4:30. Drove up to the drive thru – there was only one car in line ahead of us and it pulled out as we were pulling in. Signs said, to keep windows rolled up, and stay in the car. I got the feeling that they were convinced that the covid-19 virus is a sentient being and it is looking for an opportunity to jump from host to host. And that EVERYONE has it! OK – I cannot control other’s unbridled fear!
I drive up to the window. With my windows up. I look at the guy inside, and he looks at me. I sit there! He motions to roll down the window. I point to the sign that specifically says, Keep your windows securely rolled up tight! He motions to ignore that, and roll down the f’n window! I roll down the window. He pushes the tray out to me. In the tray, are two plastic bags, and a piece of paper. With the tray open, and air rushing in thru the tray, from my car, up and into his face (but he has a mask on – the same mask he has worn for the past six weeks, but still, a mask all the same!), he says something that I cannot hear! “What?” I ask? He bends down closer to the tray so that he can get more of my germs, and tells me to open the one bag with the small vial of liquid, but don’t open the vial. Take out the paper that looks like a large Band-Aid, and peel it half way open. Take out the cotton swab, and run it around in both nostrils a couple of times, then open the vial and place the cotton swab, tip down, into the vial and seal it. Then put the vial and the piece of paper into the second plastic bag and seal it up. Then he points to a metal box on the wall past the drive-up window, and tells me to use the alcohol cleaning swab from the first bag, to open the box lid, and place the sealed bag into the box.
So, I do that. I pull out the cotton swab on the stick, swish it around inside my nose – both nostrils – place it in the vial, seal the vial, place the vial and the paper into the ziplock bag, seal it up, open the baby-wipe, use it to open the lid on the box, place the bag into the box, and then leave. As I am doing this he says that I should get the results in 3 to 5 days!
On Saturday, we arrive at the Walgreens at Country Club and Baseline. There are 9 other cars in line at the drive thru. The entire Walgreens store is empty. No racks, no shelves, no merchandise. The only thing being used is the drive thru. Big signs at the entry warning people to DO NOT ENTER! DANGER! TESTING TAKING PLACE INSIDE! Are you f’n kidding me???? They have emptied the entire Walgreens so that they can do this? They make more money doing Covid-19 testing than an entire Walgreens store? I get in line behind the other cars. There is a sign telling me to stay in the car with the windows rolled up tight. Another sign says to hold up my driver’s license and confirmation email to my rolled up window when I get to the drive-up window. Another sign says, “VERBAL CONSENT! By being tested for Covid-19 today, you are giving your verbal consent to be tested for covid-19!” HUGH??? Signs, signs, everywhere a sign, do this, don’t do that. can’t you read the sign???? It takes ten minutes per car. An hour and a half after my appointment time, I finally drive up to the window. Welcome to socialized medicine! Make an appointment, so that you can wait in line for hours on end and hope that you will get to see someone! The signs say to hold up my drivers license and appointment confirmation email to my car window – with the window rolled up tightly. He reads the confirmation because the font is in size 36, but he cannot read the driver’s license, He has a microphone and a speaker, so I can heart him. He tells me to place my driver’s licence into the drawer, and he slides open the drawer. I open my car window, and place my driver’s license into the tray, along with a blast of air and germs that blow up into his face. But, again – he is wearing a mask, so it is OK.. If it is OK because he is wearing a mask, why do I need to keep my windows rolled up tightly while waiting in line? PARANOIA IS RAMPANT HERE!
It takes him a while to verify my information, appointment, or whatever, but when he is done verifying, he motions for a girl in surgical scrubs as if she is in an operating room to come over. She lifts up a blue plastic box and places a piece of paper in a half pipe shape into the box with the same large band-aid as I used at the other Walgreens into the half-pipe paper. Then places this plastic box into the tray and pushes it out to me. All the while, she is giving me instructions a million words per second, at a whisper, four feet away from the microphone. I cannot understand a thing she says! I reach into the tray and lift out the blue box. She goes BALLISTIC!!! Yelling through the window, “DON”T TOUCH THE BLUE BOX! DON”T TOUCH THE BLUE BOX!” I suddenly became the deer in the headlights and I must have looked at her with a startled and puzzled look, because she yells, “PUT IT BACK!” I put the box back into the tray. “Lift out only the paper and the test swab!” She says as she is leaned over towards the microphone, and she says it phonetically and slowly so that normal humans can understand. I carefully lift out the paper and the test swab in the large Band-aid. I open the band-aid and remove the swab. She says to swirl the swab around inside each nostril for 15 seconds. “I will time you! Ready, go!” WTF??? OK. I twirl, as she times me. Fifteen seconds pass and she says, “Now the other nostril. Ready, go!” So I twirl in the other nostril. She then says, “Place the swab back into the envelope and place it in the tray, WITHOUT TOUCHING THE TRAY!” I do that, and she says, “You’ll get the results within 24 hours, thank you.” I drive forward as my wife busts out laughing and she says, “You touched the tray! You touched the tray!” You’re not supposed to touch the blue tray!”
About 6:00 PM I get an email from Walgreens. My results are in! The test is negative. But just because it is negative, I still might have it, or get it so I still need to continue wearing my haz-mat suit.
I can imagine the future. Instead of these drive-up coffee shops with a 10 x 10 building with drive up lanes on both sides, it will be a covid testing site. and everyone will be required to get a test every week. We will all have a section of our passport where they will stamp it each time you get a test. In order to purchase toilet paper, you will need to show a current covid test stamp!
TropicalCastaway 