I get sick once or twice a year. Sniffles, sneezes, coughs. Since we started lockdowns and masks and endless handwashing, it's been nothing. The odd sneeze after a glass of pinot, but nothing more sinister.
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So I thought I would never have to have a COVID test. I was wrong. The most desirable places in the country were all behind the PCR-proof fence. This, my friends tell me, is not really true - it just became true when it was no longer possible to visit Queensland when freezing or Tasmania when poaching.
About six months ago, I took the risk of booking tickets to the littlest southern isle. It's been amazingly successful at keeping COVID away, and needed an injection of mainland funds. Perfect. When the borders opened on December 15, it became clear I could avoid a PCR test no longer.
I am so bad at anything slightly invasive. Needles, no way without fainting and crying. Dentists? Only after drugs. Don't even ask me about childbirth. When possible, I chose pain.
Anyhow, I'd heard good things about the drive-through collection centre in Faithfull St, Goulburn. Cheerful staff. Highly competent. Quick turnaround. Short queues. Only one of these things turned out to be wrong.
Oh my god. Four hours. Four bloody hours. There was nothing else to do but watch the Ashes on the laptop, and when that was no longer an option, to interview others in the queue about why they too were in the queue. Visiting Queensland. Visiting Tasmania. Going back home to Queensland. Going back home to Tasmania. One person of 20 I spoke to thought she had symptoms. Another had to do a test to return to work. Queensland. Tasmania.
Mental. This crushingly long queue was because of holiday requirements. No wonder Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk scrapped the need for visitor PCR tests on Wednesday. I totally get why they are an excellent idea, and applaud the urgent desire to keep Omicron out - but this is hard to manage when the borders are open.
So how was my test? Seriously, the two women running the drive-through were astonishingly upbeat. From 8am they'd been jamming sticks up people's noses and down people's throats, and they were still cheerful at 1pm when I finally pulled up to the head of the line. Cheerful enough to notice my anxiety and, better still, my gag reflex.
"You OK?" she asked kindly. Yes. I didn't pass out. Major plus.
Two out of the three tests came back negative within 25 hours. Friends told me that meant the outstanding test was positive. It was another two hours before they were proven wrong.
Those folks looking at our samples are saints. They worked long hours before Christmas, after Christmas and beyond, making sure we could get where we were going. Then, a few days ago, ABC health journalist and commentator Norman Swan shared something he'd found on Reddit. Basically, pathology labs were in a world of pain: "We are currently at the absolute limit of testing, there is literally no more equipment available, let alone staff, in the country to process more samples. Let me emphasise that the largest analysers that I've come across can hold maybe a few hundred samples at any given time, which need a few hours to actually process those specimens."
A few conspiramaniacs decided that this was all baloney. A day later, Professor Dominic Dwyer confirmed the chaos in labs. Yes, there were so many tests being done that they were being done in batches - if one of the batch tested positive, then all had to be tested individually. Assuming that's what happened with our laggard.
Most of the stories we hear about testing are awful. Long hours in a queue surrounded by coughers and splutterers. Longer hours waiting for results. A friend's son waited 100 hours for his positive result. But let me tell you that so many of us have got our results within a day, queued for just a couple of hours, and were treated so kindly by the healthcare workers.
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The ACT's sensory clinic gets a giant shoutout. Folks dealing with young ones who might have struggled in a rougher setting said, "They were so kind and gentle with both of us ... we walked straight in and had the place to ourselves." A Queenslander went for her test because she had shortness of breath. By the time she was home, the doctor called her to say that if her asthma got any worse she should go to emergency. What an angel. How are our health care workers still able to have this giant wellspring of empathy?
We are also treated kindly by others. The best story I've heard was of DJ Nige (aka Nigel Beck), who became a full-time musician in 2016 after 10 years working for the student union at Monash University. He knew how crushingly dispiriting it is to queue. At Lardner Park near Warragul in Victoria, he decided to perform for the massed testees, "to give some joy. Music makes time go by faster."
But probably my favourite of all the stories shared with me was this: "After visiting the drive-through testing place for about round four of his five tests over the past year, my three-year-old announced that the lady 'stuck her tickle stick in all his pokey holes', which was an articulate but promptly discouraged way of putting it."
No matter how long you spend in queues or how many tickle sticks you've had, or how much money you have to spend to get yourself a rapid antigen test (if you can find them at all), it feels like we are all doing it hard. Although not as hard as those who get sick.
The past two years have been painful, and it's hard to imagine a future without COVID. I'd love a future with more healthcare capacity, a kinder, gentler approach to those who get sick and to those who queue, and some governments who care more.
- Jenna Price is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and a regular columnist.