When is a negative a positive—two years into the global pandemic, many people know the answer to this question. But it was an answer I had forgotten until my household was ensconced in the floor-pacing, nail biting experience of being in close contact with a case of COVID-19 last week.
We in this house, and in this corner of the world, have been very lucky over the past two years—there have been very few cases in this province of Canada, and even fewer in this area of the province—the eastern tip of the mainland. But that all changed this month and now we are the epicenter of an outbreak covering the entire province.
While we were waiting --and eventually breathing a sigh of relief after we received our negative test results – a friend of mine commented that the world was a strange place when a negative was a positive.
Upon thinking about this comment, I concluded that personal and cultural memory was fleeting, like the pain of childbirth, we quickly forget about past plagues or perhaps we were young enough, naïve enough or lucky enough not to be touched by them.
And by this I am not talking about the 1918 Spanish flu – which is a complete misnomer as it was neither Spanish nor confined to that year --what I am talking about is AIDS, the most recent global pandemic before COVID.
When I was 12 years old, my family moved to Vancouver, B.C. It was 1985 and the city, to my memory, was the focal point of the emerging HIV/AIDS pandemic in Canada.
Although it might have been odd for a kid of that age to be cognisant of this disease, for me it was part of the household miasma. My mother was a nurse in the city and there was suppertime talk of needle sticks and blood borne pathogens. In 1986 a co-worker and friend of my mother’s died of AIDS.
My mother had a few accidental needle sticks; one of which happened while she was tending to a known IV drug user. I remember her waiting for test results to come back and the relief that flooded through our two-bedroom apartment in North Vancouver when the word ‘negative’ was delivered over the phone from the hospital.
A decade later I moved to Thailand – a country that was well-known as an HIV/AIDS hotspot due to the thriving sex-trade. And equally well-known for combating the disease with a public health campaign delivering condoms and safe-sex messaging across the kingdom.
I lived in Thailand for most of my 20s and with my background and knowledge of HIV/AIDS I was cautious in my approach to sexual encounters but there are always missteps; a few too many drinks, fumbling hands –etc.
Inevitably, I found myself at an HIV testing site doing the right thing and freaking out while I waited for the results. Fortunately, the blessing of the negative result was mine.
That wasn’t the last time I had an HIV test, but it has been over 15 years since the last time I had one. That's a long time to hold onto the memory of the relief a negative test result can deliver.
Since this COVID-19 pandemic became reality – I have, on more than one occasion, compared it to the AIDS pandemic – likening the contact tracing to the sexual partner notifications of that earlier era.
Now we’re back to negative thinking in the positive, and at least here in Nova Scotia, being asked to contact those we’ve had social intercourse with to notify them of our disease status.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
