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| Courtesy of Asahi News |
The world has endured
two years of relentless discussion of Covid* and its profound impact on society.
Without question, coronavirus has changed the world. When the impact gets
personal, though, it is wince-inducingly personal.
How would you feel if
your pre-travel antigen test or mandatory-for-travel PCR test result was “weakly
positive”? It's a clinical judgment rife with ambiguity. It means you cannot
travel and must immediately self-isolate. The added significance is the medical
authorities are not sure of your upper respiratory health status. Asymptomatic
refers to folks who are infected by Covid or a variant, as detected by a PCR
test, but who never develop any symptoms. Yet “weakly positive” stops
everything in its tracks. “Uhh, we’re not sure if you’re really sick, but just
in case, you can’t travel or interact with others.” Goodness gracious, Charlie
Brown.
This scenario
happened to me as I neared the end of a business trip to Europe.
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| Graphic credit: Aida Amer, Axios |
To prepare for my
return home I needed to take a PCR test 72 hours before departure to Japan. My
test result was the above-mentioned “weakly positive.” I stopped all work and
immediately self-isolated in my hotel room. My colleagues on the trip took over
my responsibilities.
We’re all aware of
the human cost of Covid. At this point, 515 million infections with 6.2 million
deaths. My feeling some anxiety about being infected feels petty in comparison
to the anguish others have endured. But you can’t deny your feelings. I was
marooned in a hotel room in Europe. I got busy doing back-office support for my
co-workers, but that eventually ended and I had more free time to fret. Had I
been too careless with prevention? Did my actions somehow cause this, or was I
unlucky? Will it develop into full-blown Covid? How would I self-care, like
monitoring body temperature or buying other medical needs, if I was prohibited
from leaving my room? All this stuff revolves in your head. Your room phone,
mobile phone, and laptop become your best friends. Yet, a pleasant hotel room
is not Alcatraz, right? You suck it up and stick to facts, try not to become
too mired in thinking about possibilities.
For roughly three
days, my world narrowed down to the hotel room and numerous emails and texts. I
will never forget the human element – the kindness of strangers – that made it
easier to set aside negative thinking. One co-worker bought me a thermometer,
self-testing kits, and extra masks that met local standards. Amid an arduous,
high-pressure work program, another co-worker dutifully visited every day to
make sure I was doing well and to drop off some morale-raising bread and beer.
Then my European
colleagues arranged a new PCR test at a local clinic. That clinic appointment
turned into a Marx Brothers slapstick trip. As the minutes ticked by to depart
to the clinic by taxi as planned, the hotel front staff’s body language and
whispers told me that taxi drivers were refusing to take me to the clinic.
Likely because I could be Covid-positive. I was dismayed, but it is their right
to choose their passengers. Yet, I felt like a pariah. Sensing my plight, two
of the hotel staff heroically commandeered their boss’s personal car without
permission and drove me pell-mell to the clinic. We got stopped at a train
crossing for several minutes, imperiling my test appointment. No problem. We
jumped out of the car and ran across the train tracks with the oncoming train
in sight. It being a Latin country, despite my being ten minutes late, the
clinic let me take the test without too much fuss. They swabbed my tonsil area
and poked in both nostrils, inducing involuntary tears. I was done and outta
there in 10 minutes. The good Samaritans felt sorry for my plight and took me
on a small tour of the main attractions of their city. Up to that point, all
I’d seen was the hotel room and its window views.
It’s worth pointing
out these were two complete strangers. Turns out one of them had already
endured real Covid twice. Yet they helped me without hesitation, potentially
endangering themselves. If I take anything away from this experience, it was
these small acts of human kindness by co-workers and strangers. It made a great
impression on me.
Precisely one day
later, I got the email from the clinic with one magic word: “negative." It
immediately released me from these dispiriting three days in limbo. I drank
Pellegrino sparkling water in celebration, like I was the winning driver of the
Monaco Grand Prix.
Now, all I needed to
do was re-arrange my flights and get back to Japan…
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(Ed. Note: Is it me,
or are we all so tired of capitalizing COVID, thus giving it full command of
our attention, that we’re consciously minimizing it by using only the initial
capital “C”?)
