dChan
Anonymous ID: 4220ea March 22, 2020, 9:13 a.m. No.8516873   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6892 >>7145

>>8516840

 

This is from a Vandy nurse at a Covid 19 test site on Thursday evening. Read the entirety, please:

 

As a nurse currently working in a “designated COVID 19 testing site” clinic, I feel the need to share a few things after reading too much Facebook today.

 

  1. You have to meet specific criteria for actual testing. Dry cough for less than 7 days with or without fever and shortness of breath. Think lower respiratory symptoms. Then an MD or NP/PA has to actually order the test. You don’t get one just because you want one.

 

  1. The test is not a rapid PCR test like strep or flu. It is a viral culture (think herpes) that goes to an actual lab. It has to grow in a Petri dish and be identified. This typically takes at least 48 hours. Due to the overwhelming number of specimens being processed, results are taking greater than 72 hours to get back to patients.

 

  1. If you are positive, guess what happens? Unless you are in respiratory distress/failure, you go home and self quarantine. For 14 days. Drink plenty of fluids and rest (I call this hydrate and hibernate during flu season). There are no meds to treat the virus at this time.

 

  1. If you need the test, it is a nasopharyngeal swab. It is gnarly. It is not a regular flu swab…this thing has to get past the second set of nasal turbinates. A flu test is a brain scrubbing walk in the park next to this process. Everyone cries. I think that if more people knew this, they would not demand the test.

 

  1. So far my little clinic (the smallest of the Vandy walk ins) has had ZERO positive results. None. We’ve tested at least 50 patients a day and none have been positive.

 

My advice: stay home if you can, and social distancing is a must. Hydrate yourself, get sleep. You do not need to be tested. It’s allergy season. Be nice to people. And quit hoarding the toilet paper.

 

nasopharyngeal swab.