Dad.

I didn't have any words of my own yesterday, but I'm ready to tackle this today.

Yesterday morning my father woke up with a headache, fever, and aches. He is an emergency physician, so he knew to go get a COVID test right away. By evening a result: negative.

In the time between onset of symptoms and test result, our family sprang into what actions we could take. Dad was restricted to a sick room and bathroom. Mom bleached everything. My sister and I dithered helplessly from afar and sent care-giving technical assistance and reassurances. But mostly check ins that were more for us than for them.

The negative result is not as reassuring as I had originally hoped. We've been so focused on test supplies that I never even asked myself If the test had high sensitivity and specificity. Namely, if you have the disease/virus: how likely is an accidental negative result? Its inverse? This is Epi 101 stuff that I remember calculating on exams. If a test does not do extremely well in both these regards, then it runs the risk of doing more harm than good. I don't have good intel on this test, but my father is concerned with what he heard might be a 20-40% false negative rate. He decided to not get the flu test because he was concerned with using up valuable swabs. I think he likely felt like it seemed textbook COVID and therefore didn't spend a lot of time considering alternatives. The shortage of resources is a thread that runs through everything.

He is isolated and taking meds for his symptoms and holding steady today. We will continue to assume he may have the disease and act accordingly. Even if it is something else, it is not pleasant and should not be spread if possible.

I can't speak intelligently about the test. I can say that his symptoms align very closely with the ones plastered all over social media and the news. The length and course of his illness will also be good clues, but not ones I am excited about waiting out.

I can tell you that yesterday was the first day in all of this that I broke down and cried. You can intellectually know that the people you love may get sick. Because of my father's profession, I have been taking it as a given that he will be exposed to and probably get this virus. To suddenly confront the possibility was another matter entirely.

The fact that my father was able to get a test and get a same-day response is assuredly because of his standing in the medical community and the fact that he knew when the tests went to the lab and when they generally came back. Even this negative result is because of privilege. My mother is able to live in another part of the house because my parents have plenty of space. We have a lot of family in the area able to help as needed.

Not to mention - most people recover. I vacillate between wishing it were COVID so he can get through it and then feeling incredibly guilty over this thought. If he has something else, then the pandemic specter still looms. When he is better he will go back to work. Maybe this setback will take him safely past the California surge. Is that a good thing?

How do we get out of this? What is on the other side? I don't have answers.