What NOT to do in a global pandemic:
Visiting the optician, and then a cafe, when you're awaiting covid-19 test results, and have been advised to self-isolate at home.
THREAD...
I was in a favourite cafe of mine this afternoon, and popped upstairs - there was only one other person there, a middle-aged woman, so I went and sat in the opposite corner of the room from her.
After half an hour, she rings a number, on speakerphone. It's a testing helpline...
She confirmed she was waiting to hear back on a covid-19 test for herself, and was ringing because she'd been promised a callback half an hour earlier.
They (understandably) got very agitated when they asked her where she was speaking from & she answered it was a cafe.
She was yelling at them that it was an empty cafe with no-one else in the room (a lie), and they were yelling at her that she was under doctor's orders to quarantine and not leave the house, and asking why on earth had she gone out in public, and why was she in a cafe?
She gave them a sob story about a lens having fallen out of her glasses, and going to the opticians to get them fixed, then stopping off at the cafe as "I didn't want you ringing me back at 4 with my corona test results while I was still on the bus, and I fancied a coffee!"
It was like a Dialogue of the Deaf. She was yelling over and over again "Did it come in? Have I got it? What did it say?" And they were yelling at her, "You shouldn't be in a cafe, you should be at home. Our records say someone should have called you", over and over again.
I packed up my things and left. I'd been diagonally at the opposite end of the room, a good 6-7 metres away the whole time, & on the way out I told the cafe staff (who'd been very on-the-ball with track & trace) what had just happened, and to steer well clear of the upstairs.
She wasn't wearing a mask, either, and she looked thoroughly out of it.
I really do despair at our chances of making it through this pandemic when this level of stupidity is on display. Covid carelessness affects other people - and kills.
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