The new Omicron variant of COVID-19 has brought new challenges. Like many of you, I am confused about what rules to follow, for how long, when, and where. Protocols for keeping safe seem to change daily: masks, no masks; indoor or outdoor, three feet apart or six, isolate for 10 days. No make that five.
Recently our daughter forwarded two online posts that seem to sum it all up.
The first was posted by Tiffany:
“Stay indoors. But also return in person. Wear a mask. Not that one. The expensive one, that you can’t find. Take rapid tests. Which you also can’t find. But if you find them, don’t buy them. Rapid tests don’t work. You need PCR. There are zero appointments in your area.”
Sound familiar?
Recently the town was offering free rapid test kits and masks that you could pick up at the high school. On the announced date at nearly 4 o’clock, I drove over to the high school. The lot didn’t look too busy, but there were no signs where to go to pick up the kit. I parked next to another car and asked the driver if she knew. After several minutes, I checked the town website. Oops. Unbeknownst to me and several others waiting, the distribution had been canceled because the State hadn’t yet sent the kits.
On my second attempt to get my at-home kit, I also struck out. I waited a half-hour in a slow-moving line of cars that stretched from Main Street down Mountain Road all the way to the high school on Sheldon Street. Almost halfway there, cars coming from the opposite direction were slowing down to signal to us that all the kits were gone.
This second post from Instagram (TheTinderBlog) made me chuckle, but it may not be so far-fetched.
“You know 10 years from now there is going to be a standardized test with a math problem that says ‘If Matt was exposed to COVID on Tuesday and had no symptoms four days later and he got it from Susie who caught it at a party three days before Matt and tested positive five days later, how likely is Matt’s little brother going to test positive on an antigen test if he tests two days after Matt tests positive?’ “
Did you figure it out?