The Core

The printed bits kept leaking so decided to just form the holes from the pipe itself :

Thanks, yes results at 6 this morning, all clear, PHEW!

The two people that were looking after the Mum, one is in her early 20s and is displaying no symptoms at all, the other is late 40s and just feels 'a bit fluey', the man who caught it is 51 and has had nausea, headaches and aching muscles but only for a couple of days and is out of bed already (but still staying in one room in the house until clear).

We're just mystified as to how the man caught it, we thought he may have been tempted to give his Mum one last hug (who wouldn't be tempted!) but he swears he didn't.

So now we're tracking his movements and contacts over the past week or so and asking them all to get tested, someone he was near obviously has it.

I forgot to say, they were also photographing every car's reg plate.

Thanks BoL.

So Lucy, her Dad and i went to get tested. They have set up multiple temporary buildings in a large car park, you can either queue up to get tested or do it yourself, so we opted for the latter.

The first thing you see is a large sign telling you to keep your windows closed. We were then directed to one of the buildings, where one of the workers (all of whom are in masks and gloves) held up a series of signs for us to read through the car window, just informing you of the protocol. The only odd thing about the protocol was this (verbatim) :

"Do not film us or we will not let you get tested"

Nothing about 'do not film others', just don't film the staff.

The last sign said "Call this number", you call the number and it's the mobile of one of the workers in the building who then has you open one car window only 2 inches so that he can drop 3 test kits through the gap.

The test is a bit uncomfortable, you have to swab your nostril, which is fine, and your tonsils, which triggers the gag reflex, for 10 seconds each.

So the protocol is very strict, which is good, but the instructions for using the test kit didn't correspond to the kit, the instructions told you to put a barcode on the test vial, which already had a barcode on it, and on another bag, which also already had a barcode on it. I wouldn't like to be older and a bit confused and have to do it, but you can always wait in the queue and have the workers test you.

I opted for the self-test for us all because, even though the workers told me when i asked that they change their gloves after every swab, i just wanted to minimise risk for us all.

Should have results by lunchtime tomorrow.

Type II

My dad has pretty much all the chronic conditions of metabolic syndrome.

There's been a fair amount of success treating type 2 with diet and exercise has he tried that ?

Thanks both, i didn't know about the 30% statistic, infuriating.

To find out you'd been within several hundred ft would be excruciating!

Those cases of whisky might be worth hiring ground penetrating radar for ;+}