The three words emanated from the downstairs bathroom from a crestfallen sounding voice – “I’ve got Covid!”. And there it was, the last bastion of defence against our virulent insurgent had fallen. Coronavirus has infiltrated The Yorkshire Dad household.
Was my post, just days ago, talking about how we had somehow avoided any one of the six of us catching COVID-19 too soon? Was the virus, at that very time, working its way into my daughter’s body and readying itself for an all-out attack? Its sentinels were deployed, it was coming.
It is Delilah who has fallen victim to this dreaded infection. She has become one of the statistics, one of 39,458 people to test positive in the UK on the day she was shown to be infected.
Was it inevitable?
Wearing a mask. Washing our hands. Using hand sanitiser. Keeping distance. Was it futile?
Yes, it was.
She’s at school. A place where no masks are worn and she is mixing in the most normal of ways with hundreds of other pupils 5 days a week. A breeding ground for a virus that is resolutely refusing to be beaten into submission.
No symptoms
She had done a lateral flow test (LFT) on Saturday – that was negative. She had no symptoms. We went to Ripon (a first for us) and picked up some great finds in the charity shops there. We stopped for a coffee and slice of cake in a lovely little independent cafe. All very normal life.
She went to bed on Saturday after watching Tik Tik Boom with us (a great film) and that’s when we noticed a cough. She had a disturbed night of coughing and that promted an LFT as soon as she got up on Sunday morning.
BINGO!
A positive result. A strange way of wording it, as it’s anything but positive news.
Family PCR road trip
Grace had escaped the house early for a day out, so it was the remaining 5 that had to go and get a PCR test. Helen booked us all into the nearest centre in Malton. Grace would have to do a home test.
A strange car journey it was, with us all masked up and Delilah placed at the rear of the car for safe measure. A cold, windy, rainy day was not a day to be travelling with the windows down. But, keeping the car ventilated was required.
The test site was deserted. Void of anyone other life save for the yellow hi-vis clad employees of the testing system. It was a well-oiled machine of a process and we were whisked through.
No longer symptomless
Delilah quickly began to look poorly. She certainly felt it. Banished to her room to isolate for 10 days and her sister was evicted. It’s a strange, bizarre, unnatural thing to have a sick child that you really need to minimise contact with. Yes, unnatural.
She quickly developed a high temperature, the cough worsened, a sore throat, runny nose, sneezing and in her own words, generally “feeling crap”.
She’s not going to be one of those children who hardy notice having coronavirus, that’s for sure. But, she has been vaccinated, so all being well she will bounce back quickly.
The results are in
You can’t fault a system where you take your swabs on a Sunday and get the emails (and text messages) with your results just hours later. We woke to the news of our test results.
As expected, Delilah’s positive LFT was confirmed.
The rest of us – all negative. I misread the texts though, on account of me being half asleep, and thought mine said I was positive for a shocking moment!
We have already had a call from the UK track and trace team. 36 minutes of going through Delilah’s movements for the past week, and beyond. The details of everyone she lives with, where she has been, who she has been in contact with and for how long. It was a dialogue of realisation that life had been pretty normal for her.
This has brought home to us that coronavirus is as everpresent as it was. We had been feeling life was returning to some semblance of normality and we were doing normal things. I had been to a trade show and a conference and in general family life was normal.
I’m hoping we can keep this to just Delilah, but I have to say that my level of hope is pretty low. It would feel like a monumental feat to get through the next 10 days and nobody else in this house succumbs to this awful virus.
I’ll keep my hopes up though, and my mask!