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. 

Isolation and Testing Confusion

On Monday January 3rd, we went to look for a new small upright freezer for our guest flat. There are several people booked to stay there over the next few months, including some families. Our old guest flat freezer was very inefficient to run by today's standards, and likely to stop working at some point due to its age (close to 24 years). 

One of the shops we went into was in the Metropolis Mall. I was aware, while there, that people were not really distancing from each other, and many were rather casual about mask wearing. There were a few coughs and sneezes, too. We didn't end up buying the freezer there, but we did find one at our favourite white goods' shop, George Theodorou, where health protocols were correctly observed.

On Tuesday I walked first thing with my friend Sheila as usual. Later, she and her daughters came over to help me put the Christmas decorations away, and to play some games. In the afternoon I finished cleaning the guest flat and made up the beds.

On Wednesday I did some shopping first thing for the first guests, due to arrive in the evening, since Thursday was a public holiday. Later in the day, we put away Tim's bed, turning his room temporarily into a kind of sitting room, soon to be occupied by Richard's electronics projects and repairs. 

On Thursday morning, I woke about 4am for no obvious reason, and couldn't get back to sleep. I was a bit headachey, and felt as if I were starting a cold. I didn't worry about it particularly; Sheila's daughters have all had colds recently and since they have twice-weekly antigen tests for their 'safe passes', I knew they were 'just' colds. So assumed I had finally caught one of them. I took extra Vitamin C and manuka honey, dozed for a while, and hoped it would be short-lived. At 6.15 or so I went out to walk with Sheila as usual. 

Gradually, as the day progressed, I started sneezing and coughing more and more. The headache got worse, and I felt incredibly tired. Waking up at 4am would have contributed to being tired, of course. But in the current pandemic crisis, my mind was, unsurprisingly, on the possibility of Covid. 

In the UK, most people we know test themselves at home a couple of times per week. We haven't had that possibility in Cyprus (possibly because the rather more authoritarian government here doesn't trust the rather less obedient public...) until mid-December. But as Christmas approached, each adult was allowed to collect one set of five lateral flow self-tests, intended for use over the festive season. It was a good idea, so that people could make sure they were Covid-free before spending time with elderly or vulnerable relatives.

We hadn't used any of ours, so I thought it would make sense do so. I knew that cold symptoms and headache could be a sign of the latest Omicron variant. The instructions were lengthy and confused, but Richard worked it out, and I did my test.

Negative.

I was slightly surprised but highly relieved. However I was so tired that instead of playing a game with our friends in the evening, I went to read in bed with a warm wheat bag for company.  

On Friday morning I woke at 4am again, this time with an absolutely raging headache, right across the front of my head. There was no way I could get back to sleep. I got up, and took some Solpadeine (after eating an apple to ensure my stomach wasn't empty). It helped somewhat, but not nearly as much as I would expect. A few hours later I took some aspirin and it did get a bit better.

But I felt quite grim; so before we headed out to do our weekly shopping, I did another home lateral flow test. 

That, too, was negative.

So we shopped, and went through the day although I felt washed out, and in the evening we went to our friends' home as we usually do for a shared meal, though I could barely stay awake and we left well before 9pm. 

On Saturday, another raging headache woke me up at 4am. I did not appreciate what seemed to be turning into a new daily routine. This time I just took paracetamol and dozed in my study. It very slowly got better, so that by 6am I was able to walk with Sheila. And for the first time in ages there was rather an attractive sky, though as ever a photo can't really do it justice: 

As I said to Sheila, I thought a good walk would either make me feel better, or wipe me out for the rest of the day. It seemed that the former was the case. Though very tired by the end of the walk, through the morning I did start to feel more myself again. I put clean sheets on the bed, and cleaned the bathrooms, and put away Friday's laundry, and mopped the floors... I took breaks in between each burst of activity, but I felt less much less washed out than before. 

I still didn't feel up to playing a game in the evening, so when our friends came over, I went up for another evening with a book and a wheat bag. I was tired, but I also had a hunch that I really shouldn't be sitting close to folk and breathing on them. Even though my cold, as I thought, was almost entirely better.

On Sunday morning I woke early yet again... but only a slight headache this time, and getting out of bed eased it. I had a bit of a sore throat too, but more a tickle than anything. A glass of water helped that.

I went downstairs and since I felt quite wide awake for a change, I decided to finish a baby blanket I've been knitting off and on for the past six weeks or so.  I not only finished the knitting, I sewed it all together - much easier while the cats were still asleep in the dining room.  

Then I squeezed orange juice and made our breakfasts, and turned the water heater on. I planned to go to church at 9.30 so couldn't wait for the sun to warm the water. 

And then... being, basically, quite a responsible person (I hope), I thought that it would probably be a good idea to do one more home lateral flow test, before going out, just to be sure. There are some vulnerable folk at the church, after all, even though we are masked and distance. I had a busy day planned on Monday, too, with two different groups of people, and some of them are also vulnerable. 

I want to say I was surprised that this test proved positive, but I had a strong hunch that it might.  

Richard took one too, and his was negative, so he was able to go and set up the livestream at church. Vaccinated close contacts don't need to isolate here though tests are recommended.

Chatting online with my son later, I learned that with the Omicron variant it's not uncommon for lateral flow tests not to pick up an infection in the first few days. That's because it mainly replicates in the throat rather than the nose. This is why it's less likely to lead to lung problems, which is good; but it means that the home tests are less helpful in ensuring that someone is safe to visit vulnerable relatives.

Instructions are (we thought) clear: On receiving a positive home test result, we are supposed to contact our personal doctor who will arrange for a PCR test. And, indeed,  this article is a clarification that was published a couple of days ago, including: 

As soon as they test positive, the confirmed cases must:

• Go in self-isolation
• Inform their personal physician
• Inform their closed contacts, employer, school, military camp, and so forth
• Will get out of self-isolation only after the days, provided by the protocol, have passed

(There's also a rather mystifying comment that confirmed cases cannot use any mass media... I suspect this is a mistranslation of something, as I see no possible reason why I shouldn't watch television or read a newspaper if I wished to.)

However, as it was Sunday, we couldn't reach our personal doctor by phone. I sent a text to her mobile number, but had no response.

So I called the official hotline and a helpful man asked if I were vaccinated (yes, but not yet boosted), and if I had any symptoms (not really, I said, other than a slight sore throat and explained that I had symptoms the previous few days). 

Okay, the guy said, the best thing was to isolate for the day, and contact the doctor on Monday morning.  She would then give me a code to authorise an official PCR test, he told me. And then I would have to isolate for ten days, although possibly I could count Sunday as the first. 

I stayed in my study all day. Richard cooked, and did the washing up, and re-made Tim's room back into a bedroom so he could sleep there while I isolate, even from him. I had already contacted our friends - we had only seen members of this one family all week - and they went for tests, which were negative.  I let folk know I wouldn't be at any meetings on Monday. 

I read a book, and wrote emails and Facebook messages on the computer, and did a few bits and pieces... and then slept pretty well Sunday night. I don't like having to isolate from my husband but we're fortunate to have a big enough house that it's possible without my being stuck in just one room. When I go into the kitchen, or other shared space, I wear my mask. Also when I am with the cats, who totally refuse to isolate from me. 

On Monday morning Richard called our personal doctor. The receptionist said that since I didn't have any serious symptoms, I didn't need a PCR test. Instead, she said, I should just go for a rapid test, and if it was positive the result would get recorded in the system and my official isolation could start. When Richard queried this, the receptionist checked with the doctor who said that yes, that was correct. 

We drove to the underground carpark at the mall where the official free testing happens, but there was quite a long queue. So we decided to go to the lab we went to in the summer and pay five euros rather than waiting around for half an hour or more. 

And.... the lab test came back negative. 

But by this stage I was feeling as if I had a slight cold - and my intuition still told me that I probably did have Covid, even if so mildly that it couldn't be detected by an antigen test two days later. My intuition can, of course, be wrong. But I don't think I'm a hypochondriac, and besides, it's better to be over-cautious as far as Covid is concerned than to risk other people's health.

So we agreed that I would continue isolating for the rest of the day, and Tuesday too, as minimum. On Tuesday morning I would do another self-test, and - if negative - I would be careful for a couple of days until the slight cold was gone, and then go back into circulation.

But this morning's test was not negative. It looked even more strongly positive than the one on Sunday: 

What to do? There didn't seem to be any point contacting the doctor again, since the negative lab test yesterday effectively released me - I only took the one today to be certain. I would probably be told to ignore the home tests. I don't want to have to pay for a PCR test, which could take a few days to come through anyway, and I would then have to isolate for ten days further. 

A bit of research turned up this page relating to the home tests. The instructions on that, right at the bottom, are rather different from those quoted above: 

In case of a positive result, citizens must contact the Coordination of Public Health Clinics via email... by sending their identification details... as well as a photo of their positive self-test.

Okay.

So I composed a lengthy email (no, not as long as this blog post!) describing my symptoms and the tests, attaching the photo of the second positive home test as above. I said I have no more symptoms other than a mild cold; I haven't had a fever since Thursday, and then only a mild one (if at all). I mentioned the official negative test. I told them I have been isolating since Sunday.

I asked them what I am supposed to do. 

About half an hour later, I received a response. It said:

Your request has been received.

Should we require further information we will contact you.

I have done my duty. Indeed, I feel I have gone above and beyond, by taking the tests on Sunday and today, neither of which were required after the negative tests. I will continue to isolate for at least another couple of days but am not sure what else I can do. 

If anyone has any words of wisdom, please comment... 

(Continuation, official recovery and release in the next post: https://cypruslife.blogspot.com/2022/01/isolating-in-cyprus-recovering-and.html)