The new Omicron variant of COVID has me a bit nervous since I have a number of small holiday gatherings (all with fully vaccinated friends and family) in the coming days. Also I will return to Mexico in January. More than a week ago I went to the pharmacy and was able to buy four at-home COVID test kits. I was fortunate to do so because I have heard that the kits are now sold-out everywhere.
I know that these quick tests are not 100% accurate, but I figured that they would give me some additional peace of mind. Each kit contains the materials for two tests which are to be taken between 24 and 36 hours of each other. Tuesday evening I took the first test. I swirled the swab in each nostril and then placed it in a small tube with a liquid in the bottom. I let it sit in the tube for one minute before removing it. Then I placed a test strip in the tube and let that sit there for ten minutes.
When the test strip is removed, if there is one blue stripe, it means that you are negative for the COVID virus. If there are a blue and a pink stripe it means that you are positive. If there is just a pink stripe it means that the test is invalid. As you can see if you look closely, there is only a blue stripe after I took the test.
I took the test again last night, 25 hours later. Once again the result was negative. So, I feel a bit more confident about heading down to Columbus later today to spend Christmas with my sister-in-law and her husband. I will take the test a couple more times, the second time before my departure for Mexico. I will take the remaining test kit down there and test myself again after my arrival.
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