SLOUGH, England — File this under “knowledge I could have done without:” home COVID-19 tests are far less expensive in the UK than the U.S.
I know this because I needed to take one, tested positive, and am now self-quarantining on the outskirts of London while the Trains/Special Interest Tours UK Steam trip moves on without me.
I believe I mentioned in my last post that I had come down with a cold. (If you hadn’t seen that post; I just discovered it hadn’t posted. That has now been corrected. )Well, on Tuesday night, that took a turn for the worse with such a painful sore throat that I cancelled out of Tuesday tour events in London to arrange a visit to a doctor, thinking I might have strep throat. (Fortunately, I bought travel insurance for this trip, which includes medical coverage). The doctor’s office required a COVID self-test before scheduling an appointment, so I popped down to the Boots at St. Pancras station, picked up a test (£2.75, or about $3.67) … and got an emphatically positive result.
[Insert your expletive of choice here.]
Informed the doctor’s office. Informed the tour organizers, who informed me that they have strict rules prohibiting anyone who has a positive COVID test from taking part in the tour. (I completely understand and support this, by the way, even if it has made my life much more complex.) Also informed the quite lovely media person from Transport for London — who spent the day guiding me around on Monday — that she might want to be tested. (She could not have been nicer about the news; I hope I could be as gracious in similar circumstances.)
In the afternoon, I went to the doctor’s office, where I was put in a separate waiting area because of my test result. The doctor was sympathetic and professional, and conducted several tests that showed no real danger signs. He said the current variant has a life of three to five days, and thought it was possible I might recover to the point of passing a COVID test as soon as Friday. With the tour moving on to York today — and absolulely no chance I was going to be able to remain at our five-star hotel — I found new, more economical lodging here in Slough. (This should also be covered by my travel insurance under the “trip interruption” coverage, but just in case, I wanted to be as inexpensive as possible.)
So, now here I sit in a suburban hotel room. After a fairly miserable day yesterday, I am definitely seeing improvement today. Not sure I like the odds of testing negative tomorrow, but I’m hopeful. (I do have a five-pack of tests — £9.90, or $13.20 — because I’ll have to pass two tests 24 hours apart before I rejoin the tour.) Best-case scenario: I catch up with the group in York on Saturday night. My gut feeling is Sunday is more likely.
Hoping to have the energy tomorrow to start doing some work tomorrow rather than just laying around.
So … figure that’s likely it for reports until I can rejoin the tour, or perhaps if I am able to get out and do something once I have that firwt positive test. (I am right by a main line shared by the Elizabeth Line, freight trains, and high-speed service, so there could be some railfanning on tap at that point.)
Oh, and if you’re wondering: Yes, I had the latest COVID booster before I left. They always say that won’t keep you from catching COVID but will keep it from being worse. Given that the sore throat and coughing were unpleasant enough as it was, I wouldn’t want to find out what worse would be like.
So — not the report I was hoping to give, but what can you do?
