Waste and Ambiguity

 

Every week my work place requires me to take a Covid test regardless of whether I have symptoms. I am provided with a kit, so each week I generate considerable rubbish waste namely : a polythene bag containing the kit, a substantial instruction book (printed in glossy colour), a plastic covering surrounding the enormous cotton bud swab thing, several inches of plastic stick because once you’ve swabbed your throat and nose you break off the excess stick so the swab end will fit in the mini test tube. And then I have to construct a small cardboard box in which to post the test, put the test tube in another plastic bag along with a piece of absorbent wadding of material unknown (presumably to catch accidental spillages of bio-hazard liquid) and seal the box with a large sticker. And then I have to find a ‘Priority Post Box’ and post it. 

Times this amount of rubbish by the number of people doing tests every day and driving around to locate a priority post box and I think we’ve set back our environmental credentials by ten years. At least. 

And then you have to register the test on the Government website. Takes about 5 minutes. I answer the basic ‘essential’ information and ignore the ‘non-essential’ questions. Once registered, you get an email saying you have registered, and then a day or so later your result comes through not via one email, but two. And there I was reading a couple of weeks ago that we should be limiting our number of emails. For the benefit of the environment.

The test itself takes less than a minute. I find it revolting that you swab your tonsils - cue massive heaving and gagging reflex - then put the same swab up your nose. Yes, I know it’s all me and my germs and the cavities are all part of the same ear, nose and throat system, but even so. Thank goodness we aren’t required to follow the Chinese method, eh? Tonsil, nose and now bend over. Bleurgh...

The biggest challenge is making up the small cardboard box in which to send off the test. Talk about fiddly. But I’ve got the knack now. Just need to watch out for the potential for a finger laceration.

But what entertains me the most is the ambiguity of the wording of the test result. Underneath the bit that says ‘Your test was negative’ there is what I can only describe as a disclaimer which says, ‘It’s likely you did not have the virus when the test was done.’ 

What? So it could also be likely that I DID have the virus and the result could be a false negative? That a few minutes AFTER doing the test I might have become infected by the virus thereby making me a hazard to anyone I meet regardless? But for the actual 30 seconds it took to do the test, for that actual moment in time only, I was probably virus free and everyone around me was safe. Well, how reassuring. Especially as I do the test alone and over the bathroom sink just in case the heaving and gagging goes a step further. Apologies if you are reading this whilst eating.

On the registration site you have to tick one of two boxes depending on whether you are doing the test WITH symptoms or WITHOUT symptoms. My suspicious nature thinks that when tests arrive at wherever they are processed, they are married up with their registration and if the ‘No symptoms’ box has been ticked, the test is chucked straight in the bin. The devil in me wants to tick the ‘With symptoms’ box, just to see if my test comes back positive and I get to have a week off work isolating with sick pay.

 I do hope they are recycling the cardboard boxes, though.