Americans have been told that all people who need Covad-19 tests will get them. That is a patently false claim. I am 61 years old and recently returned home to Brooklyn, New York, after a five-day work trip to Barcelona, Spain. Days after my return, I developed the classic symptoms of a dry cough and high fever. As a mild asthma sufferer – and therefore a high-risk person – I was particularly concerned, and so on the morning of Tuesday 3 March, I called ahead and then presented myself at my local ER to get tested for the coronavirus. After a cursory examination in which my blood pressure and temperature were monitored, a young physician’s assistant listened to my chest, there was some online exploration of the CDC guidelines, and after a brief discussion with an attending physician that I was not privy too, I was told that I did not qualify for the test because I had not travelled to any of the listed “global corona hotspots”. I was asked to please wear the mask they had given me on my walk back home.

Three days later, as my cough worsened, I called and got an appointment with my personal doctor who could thankfully squeeze me in when she heard my concerns. She examined me and referred me for a chest X-ray. Before I left her office, she thoroughly investigated the CDC criteria for Covad-19 testing, and for the second time I was told that I did not satisfy the protocols for the test because I had not travelled to one of five listed countries. I went for the X-ray and later that afternoon my doctor called to notify me that I had pneumonia and to prescribe some medications.

The following day, 7 March, my doctor called again to check in on me and noted that the criteria for testing seemed to have expanded. So, based on her setting it up, I returned to the ER for my third attempt to get a test. I spent approximately six hours isolated in a private room in the ER, finally winning an argument to get nasal swabs done to test for flu and Covad-19. Before I left the ER I received notification that my flu tests were negative, and that I could expect to hear back from the Department of Health about my corona test results within 24-48 hours. Once again, I trudged home, wearing my mask.

Over 60 hours later I had heard nothing. When I called the ER to inquire, I was told that I would only hear back if my test results were positive. I pointed out the absurdity of that and was told to call the CDC. In the meantime, my tenacious doctor was able to establish that my nasal swabs had in fact never been processed and my test had been ‘rejected’ by the health department – with no communication or explanation. One day later, I made my fourth attempt to be tested when advised to call a nearby Urgent Care center (Northwell Health) where testing was apparently being done. In a conversation on their Covad-19 hotline, I was told that I likely was not eligible for the test, but I could present myself for evaluation at the urgent care facility. Having traversed that path three times before, I decided that I had arrived in a cul-de-sac.

I have traipsed gingerly past waiting lines of patients in the ER, not only exposing them to my potential infection, but also exposing myself, as a high-risk candidate, to Covad-19 infection from them (assuming I did not already have it). I have been incorrectly informed that I had been tested and that my results would only come back if positive, potentially paving the way – were it not for the tenacity of my personal physician – for me to erroneously step out of my front door on the incorrect assumption both that I had been tested when I had not, but also that I was all clear. And in each instance where I have been refused a test, a key factor has been that I did not satisfy the protocol based on the fact that I hadn’t travelled to one of five countries. Yet just over 24 hours ago, the president of the US, initiated a prohibition of all travel to and from the country I had visited before I took ill.

I am still sick. I am still self-quarantined at home, and I am still in the dark. The bungling of this endeavor is spectacular, the lived experience of it, a theatre of the absurd. And rather typically, in this country at this time, the prevailing political rhetoric is utterly disconnected from the experience of ordinary people – as much as it is from the truth.