Covid test

I had to get a Covid test last weekend. The results came back negative Tuesday morning, 36 hours after the test. It was relatively quick and easy to do, any discomfort was on a par with getting a needle: unpleasant but brief.

The local university required students returning after the Christmas break to quarantine for two weeks and get a Covid test around the 7th day of quarantine. Last September they were requiring quarantining students to get three tests at the beginning, middle and end of the quarantine period but this time only one test was required. So one student in residence did as required and the first day after his quarantine period he went grocery shopping. As it happened so did I, within the same time frame. A few days later the grocery store was declared an exposure site, I checked my grocery store receipt and booked the Covid test. I didn't have to self-isolate because they said it was a low risk exposure due to everyone being required to wear masks at the store and only a certain number of people allowed in at a time. I've never found it crowded.

At the Reservoir I told a couple of people and they all said they never shop at that grocery store, they go to an out-of-town farm market instead. Students generally don't go to farm markets. All well and good so long as you don't need something that only a grocery store carries. I guess I could have ordered stuff for delivery but it's a pain and you don't always get what you want. I try to keep a grocery list but that week I went to the grocery store three times because I kept forgetting to add stuff to the list.

With the kerfuffle over vaccine production happening in Europe, vaccination rates here have come almost to a halt. Canada stopped manufacturing its own vaccines back in the day when it was deemed not cost effective to make your own when you could just order it from another country. Ha. I see that my age group will now not get vaccinated before the summer, if then. Having everyone vaccinated by September is looking overly optimistic, probably only achievable if we all get it in August. Ha.

I am starting to have some sympathy for conspiracy theory believers, reading the official news about the vaccine is starting to sound more and more like double talk. I try to keep my head down and not think about it.

I've been skating regularly but because this is an uncommonly mild winter the ice quality is poor. I am very grateful I got out on the ice when it was fresh because it was near perfect then. The fact that Hapi is not afraid to walk on it is an indicator of how bad it is, not slippery at all. I debate taking up X-country skiing instead but frankly I barely have the energy for skating, I know for sure skiing would wipe me out altogether.