I Tested Negative for Coronavirus

It’s past 8 on Friday night and my immediate future is at the mercy of three Q-tips and two vials of blood heading to a laboratory. The Q-tips carry a sample that was taken from my nose and another from my throat to test if I have influenza or coronavirus. Four days ago, when I received an email from the organizers of the conference where I spent four days in New Orleans, I hand sanitized two friends with whom I was having dinner. I was told that one of the conference attendees had tested positive for the coronavirus. For the first time I don’t feel the freezing cold of hospitals.