carbonel

Ugh, that sucks. Sympathies. Have seen several reports from people I know about colds being a lot worse after having had COVID, FWIW. Which makes sense given what COVID does to a person.

The rapid tests aren’t so great at catching COVID anymore, though reportedly the BinaxNow ones work better than some others with the latest variants. Lots of people swear by doing throat swab instead of or in addition to nasal swabbing (er, doing both sounds a bit icky, maybe they’re just doing throat swabs).

Don’t know if anyone local has the Lucira tests in stock: https://amzn.to/3vgRfKt

You might qualify for a free PCR test from one of these programs:

https://covid19homestudies.org/

Does Walgreens still offer drive up PCR testing? I miss the days when the state of MN would deliver a PCR test to you for free and then it could be sent in for free and you got your results fairly quickly. Alas. And I see community testing sites don’t even have PCR tests right now for some reason here in MN. But maybe pharmacies still do.

Because if it is COVID, the sooner you know the more likely you can get Paxlovid etc. But maybe it’s not COVID! I know there’s lots of stuff going around.

Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t get any worse and instead improves (and goes away sooner rather than later).