Two kids in my daughter's class have whooping cough which is relatively contagious. My daughter has been sick the last 2 days so the doctor had her get tested for whooping cough. Today is Friday. We get the results next Tuesday.
In the meantime we don't know if she has it. If she does have it, then she has probably passed it on to the rest of the family. But as we don't exhibit symptoms yet, we don't get tested. If she has it Tuesday then we get tested and in another couple of days we get our results.
The bottom line is a week later we will know if the rest of us have it and by then we've spread it to all of the people we work closely with (or go to school with in the case of my other daughter). The doctor's office said that whooping cough is spreading throughout Boulder right now - and will continue to hit more people because of these delays.
You would think that for something contagious and treatable, they would test if QUICKLY. When the pandemic hits this several days delay pretty much guarantees that everyone will get it.
trackbacks: Mudville Gazette, Armchair Generalist
