Think positive

Amber had not been feeling well for days. Based on an internet tip, we finally found at-home rapid tests. I bought four at once. (I did not want it to seem that I was hoarding, nor was I eager to have a reason for six or more. When I bought them, the clerk implied that I could have as many as I wanted, but I ideally wanted fewer than I had to buy.)

Amber did not wish to take one until the morning, hoping she would fully rally overnight and eradicate the suggestion that this was more than a cold.

She did not rally and, fifteen minutes later, tested positive for COVID. Taking my test produced an obvious result. Amber and I are not a couple inclined toward physical distance.

I called work and could barely mention my result before they forbade me from coming within a mile of them. My facility had been so racked with COVID cases that no unit was off quarantine; it was all but inevitable that such virulence would take one of the teachers. I regret that it is me but regret far more that I passed it onto Amber. (She is not sure that I did, positing other places in our limited travels. My petri dish of a facility is more likely, so why not have it take the blame?)

Amber canceled her next few shifts, putting her animal hospital in a tight spot, but it was the only option. They could not have Amber infect her coworkers, some of whom are pregnant and most necessary to treat the animals.

I spent Friday -- and then the weekend -- trying to get someone in Human Resources to confirm when I can get back to work. Tuesday, a woman told me that I could already have been back to work if I pinky promised to get a PCR test -- being negative on a ready test doesn't override having tested positive. (She was frustrated to have to explain this to me, but the email went to my work account, which I cannot access at home to preserve confidentiality.) Fortunately, confusion with my doctor's office meant that I already had a PCR scheduled.

A jab in my nose while sitting in my car later, I was cleared to go back to work. When I arrived Wednesday, everyone asked how I felt. I had the privilege of assuring each of them that I persisted in feeling fine. However, I was not permitted within thirty feet of a student, germy beasts that they are.

That evening, my PCR results came back. I downloaded them, assuming it would clear me.

I was still testing positive.

By this point, every office was closed. I missed work the next day, awaiting clarification on what to do, not wanting to drive in only to get turned away at the door. (A month ago, I received a ding on the COVID tracker, but there are rapid tests at work. I assumed they could swab me there since they had done it when I was exposed to a COVID-positive coworker in November. Instead, the administration gave me the bum's rush until someone told me I could just take a rapid test and come back to work once I sent them a picture of my negative result.)

After hours, I received an email from HR telling me they knew I would test positive and did not care. They expected that I might for the next three months. HR felt that I should have known that didn't stop me from being cleared to work. This does seem to defeat the point in having me get a PCR test, but perhaps they were only concerned that I might be faking for days off -- something antithetical to how I function.

Ah, but this PCR test was not pointless to the Department of Health, who called that evening and spent fifteen minutes condemning me to a new quarantine. They sent the following within an hour:

You are ordered to remain at [HOME] by the authority vested in the Commissioner of the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral & Community Health under the New York State Public Health Law and regulations. The Department of Behavioral & Community Health finds that there is no less restrictive alternative for you than quarantine [...] at the present time. You may not leave [...] without further order of the Commissioner of Behavioral & Community Health or a court of proper jurisdiction. Please be advised that willful violation of an order of the Commissioner of Behavioral & Community Health constitutes a misdemeanor pursuant to the NY Public Health Law 12-b.

I assumed that HR knew that this would happen, which might disincentivize employees from doing anything more than an at-home test. Best to leave the Department of Health out of these things.

The contact tracer said that he chose to ignore that work told me to go in on Wednesday if I promised that I wouldn't go back until the Department of Health cleared me.

I shrugged and said, "Probably?"

He ignored this as well. He stated that the Department of Health would call to lift my quarantine on Sunday or Monday, fortunately when I would not be working anyway. They would give me a form attesting my likely COVID-free status, having not checked whether this was an accurate statement.

At my job, coworkers who spent any time with me were given nasal swabs as a matter of course, all of which are negative because I wear my damn mask. (Before Christmas, as the facility had me tutoring a student who tested positive minutes after I left his unit, I asked if they could test me. They denied me utterly. They couldn't waste a test, though they added that many students declined theirs. I don't see why I couldn't have one of those to not spread an active infection.)

A nurse who called me with results the night said that I was probably okay to rejoin humanity and suspected that I had Omicron, which she assured me that everyone would get ("Ten times as infectious!"). She stated that this was a good thing, as having had Omicron means that one cannot get Delta, which is the one that will kill you. She offered as evidence that her thirty-eight-year-old friend caught Delta and was currently on a ventilator awaiting a double lung transplant. I told her that I would take being asymptomatic and indolent over that, at which point she giggled.

I missed another day of work until HR told me they do not care about a Department of Health quarantine order. The office had already cleared me and, as I was informed later, has better lawyers than the Department of Health -- something I am not sure is accurate, and I did not wish to prove. The HR rep stated less politely that I had quarantined long enough, given that I am double vaxxed and boosted. They did not care that I may still be infectious as long as I kept my mask on at work. My supervisor disagreed with this assessment, but I must obey it anyway.

I taught my one real class to my one real student. I was otherwise told to sit at my computer until a meeting about teaching college class next week, where I sit in the corner of the room. People kept their distance from me in a way that gives them plausible deniability, as they should. I did not want to infect anyone. Some of them are anti-vaxxers, and they might go down hard with an illness I did not even notice.

last watched: Brooklyn Nine-Nine
reading: Gideon the Ninth