When I arrived at the hospital yesterday afternoon, it was too late to get my Covid results same day. If I'd managed to get there just an hour or two earlier, I might have been able to do same day. As it is, it wouldn't really matter as I needed to handle billing for the past month and there was a frigidly cold pouring rain until about 2pm (when I finally went out to find breakfast and to get my Covid results).

It's no real surprise that my test results came back negative. Separate from my not having been anywhere where the chances of catching Covid were any kind of a concern since umm... my flight from Hong Kong back to Haikou in March maybe, the hospital had my phone number. Which means the Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control had my phone number. Which means the police did too. If my results had been anything other than a resounding negative, I'd've found out around the time the first round of PCR testing¹ was being done with a notification to immediately shelter in place, put a mask on, and wait to be picked up.

On the basis of my having a clean test, I celebrated by going to the pharmacy and buying cold medicine. I'm down to only 8 sudafed cold and sinus pills and although I don't take them very often, as the weather gets colder, and more people are burning either coal or firewood to keep warm, my having a stuffy head becomes more likely. Can't buy anything that covers up Covid symptoms unless you have tested Covid-free. 

I didn't realize the pharmacy was going to take my test results and not give them back to me. In fact, I didn't even notice until I was back in my hotel room. Went to the pharmacy the next morning and was like "hey, I kind of sort of need that piece of paper for hotels" and they were like "tough shit, you'll have to go back to the hospital and get them to print you a new one".

¹ I'm assuming that they are using the method where samples from as many as 256 people are tested together in multiple rounds.