Why Self-Testing Is Not Enough
It’s called test/trace/isolate, not test your own face and abdicate. Personal testing is simply not enough.
I know this because we recently went to an event where everyone was tested at the door, and around 5% of people went home positive. Safe right? No.
Today I got a call from a friend we were sitting with. He had tested positive after the event, ie the controlled space we were in was still out of control.
Luckily we are triple-vaxxed, were seated outdoors, and were masked between bites of handello and swigs of beer (which COVID of course observes a truce for).
But luck isn’t good enough for public health.
Self-testing is a supplement but not a replacement for institutional test/trace/quarantine. Most nations have given up on this (besides China), but COVID hasn’t given up on shit. It’s also cheaper/faster/less-deader than this macabre dance we’re doing with disability and death.
The crazy thing is that, with Omicron, we’re dealing a much more contagious strain while we are straining ourselves even less in response. And please don’t tell me it’s milder, Omicron is ‘milder’ than Delta, not the OG version, which we were all plenty terrified of… when was it? Last year? Where am…
