I got a covid test again today. This wasn't the fortnightly test required for access to campus, but in addition: a student in yesterday's class got a positive result this morning for a test he took after our class. The student let me know right away, and I later got an official notification confirming that, since I'm fully vaccinated and without symptoms, I need not isolate. However I should monitor possible symptoms for a fortnight and, 3-5 days after the potential exposure, get tested. That means it's too soon for me to test positive for anything that happened yesterday but I decided it wouldn't hurt to make sure I haven't been infected in some other way. I'll do another test Friday for yesterday's contact.
That's not the first positive test among my students, by the way, though the first one (submitted during orientation week) turned out to be a false positive. And once you think of everyone's movements within and beyond class and figure in the inescapable delays in testing results, it's hard not to get a little spooked. Results take time to be processed (usually less than 48 hours though not always), by which time the tested person could have been exposed anew or again! But really maddening is the sneakiness of contagiousness. We're told that infected people seem to be at their most contagious a few days before they develop symptoms! Since infection and transmission are possible even for the fully vaccinated (not that often but often enough to be concerned), regular testing of everyone is needed.
Yet in the absence of immediate real-time results, you never know you're fully in the clear. Even with our school's multiprong approach of near-universal vaccination, frequent testing, contant masking and extra hygiene it takes a dogged faith to feel safe. Someone's likened the situation to Swiss cheese: each slice has holes, but stack enough slices and you're covered. I get it, but when I learn of someone I've been in contact with having tested positive a day or two after the contact and days before I can know if I was affected, all I can see is the holes.
Update, Saturday: both Wednesday's and Friday's tests had negative results.
