MIQ Diary – Day 12 – Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
I’m ok with a 430am wake up, but today was 330am. Argh!
Today was (hopefully) my final COVID test. This would be the interesting one. Day 12 tests seem to put everyone on edge – especially the MinHealth people. A Day 12 positive test appears to be relatively rare, but it is a good indicator of possible transmission within the facility if there’s more than one. There was an incident last week in the Novotel in Auckland where some Day 12 positives almost resulted in an extended stay for an entire cohort, or at least a big chunk of them. I believe that was eventually ruled out after genomic testing showed the Infecteds didn’t have the same strain. I imagine there were many sighs of relief at that news. Hopefully such a situation doesn’t befall the plucky folk of Jet Park Hamilton.
830am rolled around and I was at the health centre promptly…unlike most of the MinHealth people, who had seemingly evaporated. So I waited. I am not good at waiting. You told me 830am. I was here at 830am. You were not. Never make people wait for you – it’s disrespectful of their time. Grr. Anyway In this case it’s not like I had anything else to do, but still…five minutes felt like an eternity even when I had nowhere else to be.
Once I had checked the hand-written notes and corrected my name (really, Waikato DHB?) I was ready for the test. I opted for the right nostril again, as it was less uncomfortable than the left. In it goes…keep breathing…just a bit longer…job done. Results back tomorrow hopefully.
The usual health questions were also rattled off. I mentioned that I had a headache, and the MinHealth person looked at me like I had two heads. So I explained it was probably due to waking up before 5am every day for the past two weeks. I think this satisfied them but they ‘took notes.’ If this entire MIQ process proves anything, it’s that some people really believe that you can’t be too careful. They’ve clearly never completed a PMI Risk Management course.
I returned to my room.
My easily-bored nature requires variety, and variety is what I got today. I’d finally completed as much of the Spreadsheet From Hell that I reasonably could without more research, so I passed it over to the experts for more input (thanks, Alex, and apologies in advance.) I’ll come back to it next week. Many calls, mini-challenges and emails later, it was the evening.
I decided that I would start packing for my Saturday departure. It burnt some time and demonstrated that strange phenomenon of how exactly the same number of clothes and sundry items, positioned and folded in exactly the same way, can increase in volume by about 20 per cent in the space of 5 weeks and 3 days. I decided to abandon this chore for another day.
I received an email about post-isolation travel arrangements. We will find out more tomorrow…
I couldn’t get to sleep until about 11pm. I believe that made today was what is known as ‘a long day.’
Lord Viking & Princess Wanda 