My fourth COVID-19 test

“Please kindly go away, I’m introverting.” 

—Beth Buelow, Author

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

THE day I decided to take my fourth coronavirus disease 2019 (COIVD-19) test on November 19 in New York City, was the same day the United States neared 252,000 new coronavirus infections as the pandemic claimed its highest daily death toll since May 7, 2020.

Together with a friend who suspected he had been infected while taking a daily ride in the subway train, I visited the CityMD, a health center, in Jackson Heights, Queens at past 10 o’clock in the morning for the swab test.

THE author (right) and his friend. 

Enduring a long line and a cold temperature, we were able to finally enter the health center at around 2 o’clock in the afternoon.  

CityMD locations all over New York City have been experiencing hour-long lines of eager New Yorkers awaiting coronavirus tests since the cold season started.

Residents wanting to make sure they would not be included in the statistics of COVID-19 cases, have once again populated the landscape of the city as infections rise and concerns of spread linger through each borough. 

Our visit was timely since all CityMD locations close 90 minutes earlier starting Monday, Nov. 16, the company announced in a statement, citing a months-long strain on medical staff and doctors.

 

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My friend, in his early 50s and doesn’t have pre-existing conditions, had a rapid test and got the result sent through e-mail some 30 minutes after we walked out from the CityMD.

My result will be known after three days. 

I had previous COVID-19 tests in New Jersey (once) and in New York City (twice) in the last three months.

The 182,832 new cases reported Thursday (November 19) represent an all-time high, according to a report in the Washington Post.

More than 170,100 new cases were reported Wednesday.

A high in current COVID-19 hospitalizations (about 81,000) threatened again to push the United States’ health-care system to the brink in several states, as state public health officials worried about reaching ICU bed capacity. 

Thursday was the ninth day in a row that hospitalization numbers have reportedly set records.

From coast to coast, stricter measures have been put in place in an effort to control the rate of infection. 

New York City officials announced that schools would close temporarily to in-person instruction beginning November 19; in California, a curfew will require most residents to stay home between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. The new restriction goes into effect on November 21, Saturday, and lasts through Dec. 21, 2020.

There are 11.8 million cases in the United States and some 252,000 have died as of November 20.

 

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) issued one of its sternest warnings to date, urging Americans not to travel unnecessarily for the Thanksgiving holiday. 

For those who do gather, families have been encouraged to gather outdoors, wear masks and keep a distance of at least six feet from others.

Because the case-fatality rate has stayed fixed for so long and there are now so many reported cases, predicting the virus’s death toll in the near term has become a matter of brutal arithmetic: 150,000 cases a day, times 1.5 percent, will lead to 2,250 daily deaths. 

In the spring, the seven-day average of daily deaths rose to its highest point ever on April 21, when it reached 2,116 deaths. 

With cases rising as fast as they are, the U.S. could cross the threshold of 2,000 daily deaths within a month. Without a miraculous improvement in care, the United States is about to face the darkest period of the pandemic so far.

The new estimates were prepared by Trevor Bedford, a genomic epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, using data from the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic, which compiles the cases and deaths that states report. 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, was a former editor of two dailies in Iloilo, Philippines)