Following the current advice I booked into the local fever clinic at Queanbeyan hospital.
Other than the very minor sore throat and a drippy nose I felt fine.
We (my wife was with me as my eyes, driver and controller) followed the signs to the clinic entrance and were met by a guy who had us disinfect ourhands with an alcohol solution and don a surgical mask. Following corridor signs we ended up outside but in an internal courtyard where multiple small marquees and shades were assembled with well spaced chairs.
The weather was cold and raining. Some of the tents were equipped with electric heaters so we made for one of them and plugged in the heater.
After booking in using my mibile phone we then waited for around 30 minutes until called by a gowned and masked nurse.
We followed her into a testing area inside the building but the rooms were not much warmer than the tents outside. One nurse did the admin, checking personal details and also took my temperature. She also placed a pulsemeter on my finger which probably also measured blood oxygen content. Then moving further inside the same area to another chair the real stuff happened.
Removed my mask, opened my mouth. In went a tongue depressor and the swab stick tickled my tonsils. Well to the back of the tongue. I managed to control the gag reflex but only just. Then each nostril. That was very uncomfortable. It felt as if swab was hitting my spine. 10 seconds in each nostril and twiddled while it was in. Withdrawal of the swab seemed to take a long time. Jacqui the nurse did say the swab was inserted around 60mm. This was required to ensure the right areas were adequately swabbed in order to reduce the chance of getting a false negative result. I was glad I'd been listening to Norman Swan on CoronaCast.
Once back home I registered with NSW Health to receive a negative result by SMS. The sore throat had gone by this time.
Hanging out some washing today, no sore throat, an SMS arrived aroundc13:00 and as expected it was a negative result.
Still a relief though.
I did the right thing and contributed to the data which is valuable.
Very grateful to the staff at Queanbeyan Hospital.
Nurses are wonderful!
Who knows if I'll need to be tested again.
We'll see
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