I got up early at 7 in the morning and took 172 at the usual bus stop around 7:38 am with an unusual mood. Coincidentally, youyou was taking the same bus and I waved to her, sitting before her without conversation during the trip. I got off on 58th street while it was still 40 minutes early. The curbside testing clinic is right opposite to the American School building with no body showing up so I found a bench nearby to sit where I can see clearly how things going on at the check in place. At around 8:15, I saw cars stopped at the check in tent and nurses started to go through ID checks. I was wondering where can I get tested since I don’t have a car. I waited, waited until about 8:25 and then approached to the tent asking the nurse how can I get tested and she indicated me to get into the building for check-in. I turned around and saw a door behind the big curbside testing tent with a sign saying “No driver check in”. Actually, I did not go straight into the building because I just saw an old lady went in there and since only people with symptoms can get tested so I wanted to wait until she gets out. I wandered a little bit outside the building, seeing another young lady with casual clothes wearing a mask seemingly sick go into the building. I was thinking “Oh, I can’t wait for too long otherwise more people are going to get in” meanwhile the old lady went out while blowing her nose. Actually I was pretty paranoid in my mind that I was even reluctant to walk through the hall way that she just went past. Finally I got in and the nurse checked my name, my date of birth and then guide me to sit in the waiting area keeping social distance with other “patients”. After about 5 minutes a nurse called my name and took me to a triage room. She gave me a brief introduction of the test and checked my date of birth again. The test was conducted with my mask pulling off to just expose my nose. I felt a little sour on my throat when she poke the long cotton stick into my nose and spin around. Right after she pulled it out, I can’t help but make a sneeze and that sneeze made me paranoid again because what if the prior sick patient got a sneeze too and the virus is till in the air while I got off my mask making a big sneeze. Would that cause me infected? “Oh, no” I cried in my mind but I can do nothing about it. I was still worrying if they would make mistakes about my identity so I asked her if my name was showing right on the label. The nurse was very kind and showed me the label.

The imagination that the air was polluted by the sick looking young lady drag me into another round of anxiety attack. Am I psychologically too fragile? I always ask myself. Four days ago, I was scared myself out by meeting a lady talking in the elevator without wearing a mask. Three days ago, I was close to try puking after knowing to have a rotten tomato may cause problems. Hope these are just normal reactions during this abnormal period.

Hope I can get my test result back soon and safely got on to the plane. By the way in order to not let airline staff question my test result or even reject me on board I asked youyou to help me print the 7 pages introduction of the cobas assay. What makes me so paranoid like this? Am I just overreacting or is it the reality?