The other day I woke up slammed with the flu/a nasty cold, completely out of nowhere. No warning signals. Just gnarly body aches, chills, congestion, head cold, the whole lot. I was horizontal in bed for three days straight, trying to sleep through the aches & chills. I honestly can't remember when I last felt so crummy.
More than how yucky it felt to be sick, I was disappointed that it meant I had to miss the big holiday volunteer days being put on by Baskets of Blessing. For weeks I had been gearing up to help prepare things with my fellow volunteers. It was bound to be two days of non-stop, but festive & fulfilling work to create 300+ Christmas baskets for people in the community. I knew it was the right thing to stay home and avoid infecting other people with whatever bug I had, but I was incredibly disappointed that I had to be a no-show.
On day two of the bug, I did the responsible citizen thing and went to get tested for covid19. Not because I actually thought I had covid. I mean, there was literally not a single community case in all NZ at the time! But because all the symptoms I was exhibiting lined up with the NZ Ministry of Health's omnipresent communications telling you to get tested at the sign of a sniffle. I called Queenstown Medical Center and within an hour I had an appointment.
The covid swab test itself was quick & uncomfortable . . . 10 very unpleasant seconds of a nasal swab firmly up my nostril.
Now the waiting. Even though I knew that the likelihood of me testing positive for covid was virtually nil, it was still nerve wrecking to wait for the results. In NZ we do not face the daily covid anxieties that virtually every other person/nation in the world does. But it was still somehow unnerving to be in limbo.
30 hours later I got a text message on our old-school NZ mobile phone (used largely only to communicate with the girls' school) confirming my negative covid results. Best text message ever! Relief flooded my achey body.
Whatever bug I had took it's sweet time working its way through my body, but thankfully no one else got the bug.
What was striking about the whole experience was the efficiency of the NZ system. No in-fighting at the country leadership level, no discrepant messaging to citizens. Just clear & consistent communication, free testing available to all, and no questions (other than your symptoms) asked. Impressive to see.
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