Isolating in Cyprus, recovering, and trying to get into the system...

Continuing the post I wrote ten days ago, about being ill, confusing test results and voluntary self-isolation. 

I was reassured by comments telling me I was doing the right thing, and suggestions that I should continue isolating until a home test proved negative, whatever the official rules might be.

The day after writing the email I mentioned, on the morning of Wednesday 12th January, I had a phone call in response. A helpful man with limited English told me I should go to the New Hospital for a PCR test at 7.30pm that evening. I had to turn left at the parking, he told me, and wait at the old container.

At around 3.30pm he called again and said that if I wanted to, I could go immediately. 

Of course it meant Richard and I had to be in the car together rather than isolating from each other, but we both wore masks. Since he hadn't caught it on the two days when I had symptoms but was testing negative with the home test, I didn't think there was a huge risk by this stage, when I no longer had any symptoms. Perhaps the PCR would prove negative, and I wouldn't be in the system at all...

The test wasn't too uncomfortable, and I assumed I would hear the result by the following morning. No, the doctor told  me, this wasn't  a quick PCR. This was a slow one, so I would hear in three or four days.  

I was not impressed! It was six days, already, after having had the first symptoms. But I knew I needed to keep isolating. So I didn't leave the house. We continued sleeping in different rooms, spending most of our days in other different rooms, and I wore a mask when I went into the kitchen or living room.

On Saturday, January 15th, I thought I was improving. The cold symptoms seemed to have gone, and I really wanted to get the house clean and aired, the bedding changed, and life beginning to be back to normal. So, feeling hopeful, I did another home test. 

It proved positive.

I wasn't happy. I stayed in my study, venturing out into the rest of the house in a mask to do as little as I could, and gradually realised I was still extremely tired. Perhaps it was as well that I wasn't trying to clean the entire house. We postponed our usual get-together with friends for Sunday and I knew I wouldn't be going to church. 

Then there was an update in the papers, about isolation periods, due to be implemented on 17th January. While some other countries were reducing the isolation period to seven or even five days (with negative home test to release them), Cyprus was making it longer. Instead of ten days from onset of symptoms, it became ten days after the first positive test. The only good thing was that no longer do doctors have to be involved - the article states that, 'The citizens will be automatically informed on the mobile phone with an SMS the night before their release.'

On Sunday 16th, I finally received a text message from the Ministry of Health with my PCR result. Actually, it was four text messages: two in Greek, two saying the same things in English. 

The first one said, in capital letters, 'Your Covid19 test is positive. Please self-isolate, inform your contacts and contact your general practitioner. You can find the official guidelines at https://bit.ly/2ZZEbtd". 

I had, of course, already informed my contacts, such as they were, and they had done tests to ensure they were Covid-free. I hadn't seen anyone other than Richard for over a week, and had kept my distance from him. 

The second text message told me that in order to submit contact tracing data, and to get a certificate of recovery, I had to fill in an online form. It gave me a code to enable me to do that, so I did. It felt rather like the cliché of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted but I wanted to show willing. So I filled in all my information again, made up a Greek spelling of my name (which was required in addition to the English spelling), and listed Richard and the friend I had seen most recently (eight days beforehand) as two contacts. Both are fully vaccinated and boosted so would not be required to isolate or have tests... but I assumed they would both get a message from the ministry of health.

But, over a week later, neither of them had heard anything. 

On Monday morning last week, I felt considerably better. By then it was two weeks after my likely exposure to Covid, ten full days after my first symptoms. It was eight days after my first positive test. By the regulations of most other countries, I would be free to go out and about, considered non-infectious. 

But I wanted to be sure, so I did another home test. And, hallelujah, it was negative!

They don't have QR codes here, and there was no way to inform anyone official, but we reckoned that meant I was no longer in danger to anyone. So I spent Monday airing and cleaning the house, doing extra laundry, and no longer wearing a mask. It felt as if I were no longer 'unclean', and it was awesome to be able to hug my husband again. 

Possibly I did too much as I was exhausted by about 6pm, but I was very relieved to think that life was getting back to normal again, and that I had escaped reasonably lightly. 

On Tuesday I emailed an address I found, for queries about release from isolation. I had no response, not even an automated one. Since I had decided I wanted to be in the system,  I thought I had better stick to the rules of not going out, even though friends came over, satisfied that I wasn't going to infect them. 

By Friday. I still hadn't heard anything. By Friday, it was two weeks after my first positive home test. I didn't go to the shops; my 'safepass', according to the local press, would not work (although when Richard scanned it with his CovScan application, it showed as fine). In the evening, we went to our friends' house but I was more tired than I had realised, and we left early. I really hoped I might get a 'release' text on Friday evening, ten days after my second positive home test. But nothing came.

On Saturday, I went out for an early morning walk with my friend, for the first time in a couple of weeks. I couldn't walk very fast, and felt that we had to turn back before we reached our usual destination. It was good to be out, although it's been very cold recently. Even the flamingoes seem to have got the message about distancing, although in this photo they just look like tiny white blobs:

I know, I really shouldn't have left the house at all until I'd had my release text. But if my lab antigen test on Monday10th had been positive (as I'm sure it would have been if they had done it correctly) I'd have been released, at least in theory, a couple of days beforehand. And it wasn't as if I were seeing lots of people. 

Much as I enjoyed the walk, I was very tired by the time I got home. There's a cough, too; not as frequent as it was a week earlier, but quite hacking and unpleasant when it hits. Usually when I get cold, or when I'm talking. Hot drinks help, as does staying warm. And I do want to get a bit fitter again, but walking even a couple of kilometres appears to be as much as I can manage so far. 

I felt wiped out for the rest of Saturday and had another early night... but just as I was about to go to sleep, I heard two messages on my phone in quick succession.

At last!  My official release text, in both English and Greek. 

But that's not the end of the saga. 

My second vaccination (Astra Zeneca) was on July 7th 2021. In Cyprus, we were told to wait six months before booking a booster, so I had planned to have it as soon as possible after 7th January.  That guidance did in fact change mid-December to allow a five-and-a-half month gap. But it didn't seem like a great idea to have a booster right before Christmas. Besides, I didn't suppose I was at much risk... so I had booked it for January 11th. Obviously, I had to cancel since by that stage I was isolating. Even that wasn't straightforward, but Richard eventually found the right phone number and succeeded in doing so. 

While opinion is divided about how soon after having Covid one should have a booster, most of the advice I found recommends at least a month. In Cyprus 'safe passes' for vaccinations expire seven months after the second dose, if no booster has been given. That would mean that from February 7th my vaccination pass would no longer be valid for shopping or church or anywhere else I might want to go, unless I had the booster before that date, and I wanted to wait. 

No problem... or so I thought. Instead of continuing to use my vaccination safe pass, I could get a new one based on my having had Covid. That would be valid for at least three months, so I could wait a bit longer before booking the booster.

So on Sunday morning Richard used his phone app to try to get a new safe pass for me. But when he selected 'recovery from Covid', it told him that the system couldn't find a release certificate for me. He tried a couple of times, and I tried on my computer - nothing worked.

Perhaps, we thought optimistically, it would take 24 hours to update. 

So we tried again this morning, and it still didn't work. 

At the bottom of the page was a hotline number for questions, so Richard called that. And a helpful guy said, 'Oh, yes, it's wrong. I will update it. Try again in twenty minutes'. 

We rolled our eyes a little - surely the system should have automated it...? - and he tried again twenty minutes later.

This time it found the certificate. It produced a safe pass. 

But my name was spelled wrongly.  Not just one spelling error (which, in Cyprus, really wouldn't matter as spelling does tend to be variable for proper nouns) but THREE mistakes.  One in each of my three names. Since places checking safe passes are also supposed to check IDs, I thought it should really be more accurate than that. And where had it picked up the wrong spelling anyway...? We will probably never know. 

So Richard called the hotline AGAIN and someone else said that she would correct it. It's a tad concerning that all it takes is a phone call to have something like that edited... but 'this is Cyprus'. 

Sure enough, it worked. 

Well, almost. 

My middle name is given as part of my surname rather than as part of my first name, but at least the spelling is correct.

I now have a safe pass valid until July 7th. That's six months away. I don't plan to wait that long before my booster, unless Omicron proves to be the end of the pandemic (as some hopeful experts have suggested might possibly be the case) in which case I might not have one at all. But assuming it continues, I really don't want to risk another infection. I know my case was mild; I don't have any underlying conditions and I'm reasonably healthy. And I've had two vaccinations. But it wasn't pleasant, the lingering cough is nasty, and I'm still not back to my usual energy levels.