Today is the day that my friend, who woke up with a fever on Thursday, December 16, would have been tested for COVID-19 had he been willing to drive to Lynn (about a one-hour round trip).
Here’s a screen shot from last week when I logged into the Project Beacon site to see what was available at what is advertised as the highest capacity testing facility in Massachusetts (state-funded and organized by the best and brightest):
Results aren’t ready for 1-2 days, which means if he’d gotten his test today at 2:10 pm, he would have gone a full week from having symptoms to getting a test result.
(The beauty of Massachusetts is that people can go from spending hours in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles to days waiting for an appointment at the government-organized COVID-19 testing facility and conclude “Our lives would be much better off if the size and role of government were expanded.”)
How’s the impatient patient doing? (instead of waiting for what would have been his test appointment today, he drove one hour round trip and to the closest CVS that had an at-home test kit in stock; he got a positive result the evening of 12/16)
From a previous post:
- Day 1 of COVID for my friend: fever of 102 (chronicled in Why is it still almost impossible to schedule a COVID-19 test? (at least in Maskachusetts) Note that he had been feeling less than 100% for a few days prior, so this technically could have been considered Day 3)
- Day 1, evening: temperature down to 100. [discussion about Regeneron]
- Day 2, morning: Right now about 100F in each ear. Throat doesn’t hurt as much, coughing subsided. Although now that i wrote that it subsided i needed to cough. I can feel the vaccine working.
- Day 2, afternoon: Gone. It was pretty much gone this morning.
To this we can add the following:
- Day 3, morning: I am perfectly fine – just some snot in the nose. No temperature.
- Me: Denial is one of the classic symptoms of Long COVID
- Day 4, morning: A little congestion in the nose. Temperature completely normal: 98.4 in both ears.
- Through today: still some lingering congestion, thus proving my Long Covid theory
Currently on my home from Canada, and in the Calgary Airport. Booked an antigen test a few weeks ago ($40 CAD), found the airport location, walked up, and in 10 minutes I had my results (there were 3 of us there). Got a nice piece of paper, checked into United. The airline employee glanced at my paper, my vaccine card, and passport; 2 min later I was on my way through Security and US Customs. The only thing that was looked at after the airline check in was my boarding pass. Happy Holidays!
Alberta is an island of freedom (relatively) in Canadastan. “spending hours in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles” was long ago eliminated in Alberta by private companies providing registry services, usually in 5-10 minutes with little or no queuing.
Hi Phil, now seems like a good time for an update on your post from September!
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/09/27/correlation-versus-causation-covid-19-is-now-killing-republicans/
Post:
Today’s New York Times carries an article saying that COVID-19 is now almost exclusively a disease of Republicans: “Red Covid; Covid’s partisan pattern is growing more extreme.” The article is festooned with scientific-looking charts.
…
Readers: Do you think that the current large differences in COVID-19 daily death rates among states are actually caused by party affiliation? If there is some other cause that we can be confident in, what is it?
Steve Comment:
Coastal America (blue states) tend to have mild summers, and long dreary wet winters.
The sunbelt is entirely Republican
…
NYT is just repeating a seasonal smear of Republicans by relying on correlation rather than causation.
PhilG Comment:
The NYT says that New York is righteous #BecauseDemocratic. But you’d expect them to have another wave of COVID-19 death this winter?
…
Maybe Vermont would be a good test for your theory.
Steve Comment:
I agree with your suggestion of using Vermont as a test case, although using all of New England might be better since the region has all the highest vaccinated states in the country