By Jason Marlow
A little over a week ago I had an indoor business meeting with someone who the very next day tested positive for COVID-19. The anxiety you might expect gripped me. Had I observed social distancing seriously enough? Should I have been taking a meeting with another person indoors? I certainly own up to my own personal responsibility. In hindsight, the meeting should have been outdoors. Nevertheless, I was nervous.
I tried to acquire a test through CVS. This was an intense serious of struggles. On the first attempt, the CVS menu had no option for my reasoning for wanting to be tested. I filled it out as honestly as possible and it said I was not eligible for testing. On the second attempt, I essentially adlibbed that a test had been recommended to me by a medical professional (it had not), but I felt compelled to be tested. This still did not work – according to the website, all of the seven Hillsborough County wide testing locations were booked that day, the next day, and the day after that. Trying again the next day I found that the website was down and that I could not access any date to request a test.
At the same time, over the same two days, I attempted to call both the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County testing lines. This was a nightmare out of a Kafka novel. My first day was spent either on hold or having my call dropped from 7:59 A.M to noon. An operator early on took my call explaining that the system was so completely overwhelmed that if the system couldn’t place you in the queue, they dropped your call automatically so as to prevent the system from completely crashing. After about an hour of calling in desperately, the line simply went to a steady busy signal. I repeated this the next day, calling from 7:59 A.M.to noon. This time I wasn’t fortunate enough to even hear a human voice. Four hours of busy signals and dropped calls.
Two full days had gone by. I’d spent about a collective ten hours trying to acquire a test, and nothing. Over the weekend, the CVS system had the same issues as before and the City and County lines were not in operation. Two more days lost. Fortunately, throughout the entirety of this time I showed no symptom’s and felt virtually fine, but the anxiety was there, gnawing at the back of my brain. It took three more hours of calling, staying on hold from 7:59 A.M. to nearly 11:00 A.M. before I finally spoke to a person and was able to schedule a test for four days later.
Getting a test was the easiest part. Drive into a sea of cars lined up around the testing site, undulate and wind like a serpent around the parking lot for a little over an hour, fill out one form, and have a very uncomfortable elongated Q-Tip ungracefully inserted into both of your nostrils. In five to ten days I’ll have an idea of whether or not I’m positive, but I’ll say there is quite a sense of relief in finally having acquired a test. How do I feel? Concerned. I work from home, I have dogs not kids. Doing this was difficult for me but after almost eleven hours, eventually doable. How many people in the county have eleven hours to put against this? That scares me. Despite what Trump may say, we need a lot more testing, not less. The only way we’re getting through this pandemic is by testing on a massive scale and then a slow and smart economic re-opening; not the rapid and rushed plan that Governor DeSantis has put forth. We are only going to get through this crisis by standing together (while being socially distant) and wearing masks, thinking of one another and helping keep each othe