Continued Testing Hysteria

So continuing on from the huge-ass lines I saw to get tested for COVID earlier this month ... I was able to get tested without too much of a wait the first time after this blog post.  I think I then went to the Minneapolis Convention Center for my next test last week, and even around lunchtime back on Friday, there was a half-hour wait.  Still, not bad, and both tests turned out to be negative.  Phew!

But this testing thing is something I think I'll need to keep doing.  Stupid, selfish people still surround me.  Monday night I went to work out, and I saw two people in the exercise room when I got there, the first time in the pandemic it was that crowded.  One of them, a small but fit spitfire of a woman, nonetheless had this off-putting braggadocio that makes me think she's anti-vaxx af.  She was running on the treadmill, dropping and doing push-ups, and blasting out modified sit-ups on the yoga mat -- all while unmasked.  Because she was unmasked, I kept my mask on the whole time, even after she left.  She gave off an annoying vibe, but I might be thinking that because she hoarded the remote while I wanted to watch Monday Night Football.

Anyway, it is that interaction, as well as others, that prompted me to get another test in before 2021 dies, although, to be fair, I wanted to get one anyway.  I worked out again last night, but the testing center isn't too far out of the way, so I figured I could drop by there before exercising.

Except that I couldn't.  When I parked and walked up to the entrance, I saw a bunch of people milling out in front of the entrance.  When I got to the entrance, the doors were locked.  The place closes at 7 on weeknights, and I (well, we) were there before then.  It's not as if I can file a complaint to the Minnesota Department of Health for this blindside closing.  I just hope they had a damn good reason to lie and shut their doors early, like running out of tests.  And I'm still not completely sure why everybody wants a test now.  My theory about people now needing proof of a negative test still stands.  But maybe the real fear about this new variant is freaking people out?

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In the meantime, these stories of the Omicron variant infecting people that are fully vaccinated and boosted, plus the sudden slew of large events being cancelled as a result of people getting infected, has prompted me to re-think whether to do my annual tradition of spending the evening with my friends and their family to ring in the New Year.  I'm sure they're not anti-vaxx, and the total at most will be a dozen.  But we'll be indoors, and there will be a lot of talking and shouting, and all types of viruses can be transmitted when you get a bunch of kids together.  I hate not going there for a second straight year, because I love spending New Year's Eve and Day there.  But it just might be too dangerous.