Post 45 - April 25, 2020
Day 45…
Yesterday, Michael and I decided that we would go downtown and get an antibody test.
A friend of ours had gotten one at a walk-up clinic on 42nd Street the day before and said that it wasn’t too bad a wait, so we figured that we would too.
It was the first time, since all of this started, that Michael and I had taken a long walk together through streets in Manhattan. We usually take walks on our own or if we are together, we go into Central Park.
This time, we would walk downtown.
Despite the fact that it was a cold, rainy day, there were a lot of people out there.
It was pretty crowded.
Not remotely near pre-virus levels but compared to two weeks ago when NOBODY was out there, but it seemed busy.
People are itching to get back.
The government is also itching to get people back so that the economy can start to be rebuilt.
We all want that, but we are still far away from having even the beginning of a clear idea of HOW.
Some states have started to re-open regardless.
Testing is not widely available yet.
Even if testing were available, the various brands of testing are not all that accurate yet.
There is also so much about this virus in terms of how it spreads and what it really does that we are just learning about.
Nobody has any concrete idea of what is going to happen if we start to re-open now.
Health officials. However, seem to be pretty united that all of the models indicate that re-opening now is not going to end well.
It is TOO SOON.
All eyes are on Georgia where Governor Kemp, as of yesterday, lifted the mandatory closure of many small businesses.
Businesses like hair salons now are forced to re-open because as the mandatory closure was lifted, their employees are no longer eligible for unemployment.
Some salons opened, with every other seat being used, beauticians in masks, gowns and gloves and hand sanitizer available everywhere.
Some, like Sabrina Watkins in College Park refused to re-open and stayed closed anyway.
"I said, 'No, absolutely not. Get your hair done for what?'" Watkins said. "There's a pandemic, people are dying. As much as I love the business, now is not the time, regardless of who says it is."
Even the White House guidelines don’t currently recommend re-opening businesses in Georgia until June 22.
States are moving forward with bills that would stop people from being able to sue businesses for COVID-19 issues that arise from the workplace. In other words, if the state mandates that businesses re-open too early and you go back to work and, as a result, contract COVID-19, you would not be able to sue anybody.
Utah passed that legislation yesterday.
If you live in Utah and the state forces you to go back to work by lifting the closure mandates and you get the virus, you now cannot sue your employer for not protecting you well enough.
At the testing site, we joined an orderly line of people outside - maybe six or seven of them - all responsibly masked and staggered at 6’ intervals.
We filled out our forms and waited.
Our SAG insurance covered the testing, so it wouldn’t cost us anything directly.
After about 20 minutes, as other people left, we were able to go inside the waiting room and have a seat.
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning yesterday that governments should not consider issuing “immunity passports” because there is not enough research available yet to support the idea that once you’ve had the virus that you are immune to getting it again.
One by one, we were called into the exam rooms in the back and we had a small vial of blood drawn.
Everybody there was very nice.
It seemed clean and well managed.
The whole thing took about five minutes.
We left and walked home.
The New York Times had an article this morning about the efficacy of the antibody tests.
They evaluated 14 of them using samples of blood that they knew either had or didn’t have the antibodies.
Only three of the tests were accurate to any degree and even those three had an unacceptable rate of false-positive / false-negative.
The test that Michael and I took was not mentioned by name in the article.
We all want to go back.
Michael and I took the test because, why not?
At some point if there is some sort of “immunity passport” we would love to be able to get back to work.
We both think we had the virus back in the early days of March.
It would be nice to know.
Whatever the results are from the antibody tests that we took yesterday (and we should get the results on Monday or Tuesday) there is currently nothing that we can DO with them.
We can’t fully trust the results.
We can’t go back to work with the results.
We can’t hang out with any other like-resulted friends.
Ultimately, yesterday, Michael and I had a nice walk down to midtown and back.
For now, that’s enough.