I hate getting a Covid test.

The only one I've had that wasn't deeply uncomfortable was the one I got while I was in the Infectious Diseases Building at Haikou People's Hospital last March to clear me from suspected to someone that could go to the Quarantine Hotel. And, while it's true that that particular episode wasn't physically painful, the man administering the test was in full PAPR with his own air supply so it was still very deeply uncomfortable.

I gagged and nearly threw up on the tester who came to release me from Quarantine.

I produced way too much spit, then choked on it when getting tested prior to last year's Tour.

My mid-Tour test to make people feel comfortable (and to let me buy more decongestant) left me feeling like someone had stuck a sharp stick up my nose. 

The test I got in Xi'an at the beginning of this Tour was a freezing cold day that I was insufficiently dressed for.

The test in Dingbian was relatively pain free except for the whole part of it being a five hour check-in ordeal.

The attempted test in Xixia with the registration system that couldn't accept a non Chinese name and which needed an ID number that passed the checksum was also a different kind of painful.

And now, this....

....

Margaret not only has an asterisk on her Track Code to indicate that, although she has not been in any medium- or high-risk areas, she's been in a city with one, she also has a low grade fever.

On the one hand, this rather serves to expedite our test results, and we get them within 3 hours instead of the currently normal 24; on the other hand, this is because we weren't going to be allowed to leave until we were cleared.

There's a lot of sitting around under very ineffective sunbrellas and cooking because of course the test area is outside the hospital in its own little area where it can't cause cross contamination. I'm at least allowed to go out and buy us drinks to bring back though, one of the times I do this, my track code won't load (the system is kind of overloaded right now) and even though the guard has seen me here for the past many hours, I can't pass until I either pull up that code or complete a long form paper registration.

It's annoying. It's frustrating. And, completely unlike most of the Covid related security theater that's been going around for the past few months, both of us have to admit it is absolutely the right way to be doing things.

With negatives on our respective swabs, a negative on her blood draw, and no "ground glass" patterns on her CT scan, we are released back into the wild at about 2pm where we make the incredibly stupid decision not to go straight to the Longmen Grottoes cause it would be better instead to spend all day there tomorrow.