I first heard about the new Coronavirus on January 22, at the Vancouver airport — not where you want to be when a deadly disease is spreading around the world via, you know, airplanes. At the time there wasn’t a lot of information yet, and certainly not enough to change my travel plans, so I went ahead with my Panama trip.

By the time I got back to Vancouver a couple weeks later, the first cases had been reported in Washington state. People were taking precautions. There were restrictions on travelers coming from mainland China. On the plane, an Asian guy coughed directly onto the back of my head, having made no attempt whatsoever to cover his cough. I’d like to think I’d have been just as pissed off if he’d been a white guy, and obviously white guys travel to and from China, and Asian guys travel to and from places that aren’t China, and I have no idea if the guy was even Chinese, much less where he was traveling from, apart from Houston… So I’d like to think my mind didn’t immediately go to a racist place when I felt that cough hit the back of my head like a wet fucking fist, but there was definitely a thought process that I went through…

I got home, and I got sick within a few days. First it was diarrhea, but I assumed it was just the change in diet. I always feel like shit when I transition back to American food. I had some mild, flu-like symptoms, but nothing serious, and I was well enough to take a small, home renovation job about two weeks after I got back.

A day or two after that job was done, I had a lot of fatigue and muscle and joint pain. I had frequent headaches and a fever. I had nightmares, which I attributed to the fever; I couldn’t sleep much at night because I thought people were coming into my room. At least once I woke up and yelled at someone to get out, but there was no one there.

I did not have any significant respiratory symptoms. I had a very minimal, dry cough. Within about a week I started to feel a bit better, but my sleep schedule was messed up from the nightmares I’d had, so I was sleeping during the day and staying up most of the night. I had good days and bad days from there on, and that’s where I am now. Last night I had some sinus issues but they were gone by morning. Some days I sneeze a lot, and other days I don’t. My symptoms have never been severe, I’ve been able to keep up with my chores, and if there wasn’t a pandemic in the news I might not think much of any of this. I’ve had long, lingering illnesses in the wintertime before, typically about once every five years or so, and they’re usually worse than this. Mostly I’m just tired.

I don’t think I have, or had, Coronavirus, but I’d like to know. I’d like to be tested. I don’t think that makes me paranoid or a hypochondriac; I think I’m being very reasonable.

Today I noticed that the hospital has a new drive-up window, so I drove on up. Inside the booth was a woman in sort of a hazmat suit — it wasn’t like the guys in the movies, but she was fully covered. I explained my situation and asked if I could get a test, and long story short, I could not. I was able to get my temperature taken, right there in my car, which was great — they should have that all the time. I’d be all about drive through blood draws, too. Anyway, I did not have a fever, so I was advised to just keep track of my symptoms, but I didn’t qualify for a test. And that makes me really fucking angry.

We’ve had the ability to test for this virus at least since late January; today is March 19. Other countries are testing thousands of people per day. Our president told us last month that anyone who wanted a test could get one, and that the tests were “beautiful,” whatever the fuck that means. And then today I find out that while the president and other Republicans were downplaying the severity of the virus, at least one Republican senator was quietly selling off his stock portfolio. I wonder how many of the others were doing the same, while claiming that this virus was no big deal, or that it was a Democrat hoax — stalling for time while the rest of us went without the ability to even check to see if we had the fucking thing. To be clear, people died during that time, and people are still dying.

A friend of mine told me I’m not in the right tax bracket to get tested. I don’t know if that’s true, but it kind of seems that way.

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No one will eat at the local Chinese place anymore. I’m trying to go at least once a week; I really like the soup. All the restaurants are take-out or delivery only, and a lot of them are just closed until further notice. The grocery store is out of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, pasta, beans, and rice. It’s almost like people are planning a very big, weird, gross party that I’m really happy to not be invited to. When the last of the toilet paper was gone, they started buying up all the paper towels; I’m pretty sure they’re going to start flushing paper towels down the toilet and doing catastrophic damage to the sewage system. This will probably start happening all across the country in the next few weeks, creating a nationwide fatberg apocalypse.

I’m a ‘wash it, don’t wipe it’ guy, which means I probably have a cleaner and healthier butthole than you do, and I haven’t bought toilet paper (or had a hemorrhoid) in a decade. I have a good immune system, and I’ve had regular medical checkups to prove it; if I haven’t already had this virus, when I do eventually catch it, I’ll survive it. I’m also not worried about people hoarding food; I have plenty of eggs I can eat, and chickens, and whatever else I can find around here; I’m good for at least a few months before I have to start poaching deer or pillaging neighboring villages.

I’ll be fine. I just want to know if I have this virus, or if I had it before and I’ve since recovered. I’d like to know if I’m immune to it now, or still at risk, but since I couldn’t get access to testing in any kind of a timely manner, and I still can’t, I may never know if I’ve had this thing or not. I’d like to know when I can visit my family without putting their lives in danger. And I can’t help thinking that I wouldn’t have all these questions if the guy in the White House wasn’t a bumbling psychopath.

I wonder how people would have voted in 2016 if they’d known this pandemic was heading our way. I wonder what this country would look like if we voted like our lives depended on it. Because it turns out they fucking do.

November is coming.