An A4 sheet of paper is put in front of me. On the page are three outlines of the human body. The most left outline has a couple of dots within the outline, let's say 5% of the body is filled with black dots. The middle has more dots, closer to 10-20%. The third on the right is littered with small black dots, 40-50. "So, if you had to say how many moles you have, which of these three do you more closely resemble?". I point at the right hand side diagram. "Oh, you're considered very moley, you should be checking your moles yearly".
It's an interesting process to have somebody look at every mole on your body. Brushing through the hair line. Looking under nails, at your lips, at your toes, are the soles of your feet. Turns out I have a mole on my lip and a mole on the front of one of my toes. We also found a mole that isn't quite like the others. They decided to cut this sucker out for further biopsy. Turns out it was of no concern.
A little uncomfortable sleeping, and you have to keep it dry and clean, that's a bit annoying. Oh, and you can't do yoga else, this the stitches may pop out.
Extension to flight ban. New target 4th March - moving to 4 months of being "stuck" in Sydney.
"The vaccine works! I was the only person who had a booster and I managed to avoid Covid" were the words of proclamation. That is, until last week. They said it starts with a sore throat, and a spicy cough. Thursday, my throats starts to become scratchy. Friday I wake with headache, and mind fog. The RAT still remains negative. Come Friday evening, I have a fever and body aches. Covid strikes.
It's Friday afternoon, I tear open the RAT. I stick the clean swab up my nose, swirl it ten times around my right nostril. Sneeze. The I swirl it ten times around my left nostril. My eyes tear, I sneeze again. I dip the swab into the solution and swirl, dab and mix the sample twenty or so times. I carefully squeeze 5 drops into the applicator and watch the liquid fill up the indicator. 15 minutes later, the indicator is still lined up with the "T". Negative. Time to go out. I meet colleagues for drinks in an outdoor area before heading back to the apartment. By the time I get back to the apartment there's 7 people chatting, drinking, eating.
It's now Sunday, we have the Airbnb for another two days. NSW is currently reporting around 35,000 cases a day, down from the 100,000 or so, earlier this month. My phone flashes a notification, I've been added to a newly created Whatsapp group. Everybody who came over to the apartment on Friday is in the chat. The first message is "Tim got a positive result and I got a negative result". No sweat, one out of 8. We head over to the get a PCR. I test negative, my house mate tests positive. So begins the slow emergence of the cluster gathering that we hosted.
I immediately check into a new hotel and prepare to isolate. Over the next couple of days, 7 out of the 8 people from Friday night would eventually test positive to Covid. A week goes by, two RAT tests, two PCR tests later. I, the only one with the booster remains negative.
#whoisamanjaffari
