Just went through the corona virus testing. It was a very surreal process, involving very serious minded medical, military along with state and local law enforcement personnel.

Louisville has been the epicenter of covid19 in Kentucky, accounting for 67% of the infections and deaths in our commonwealth. Louisville is where we reside.

It was a drive through testing. We were given an appointment,  a specific time to arrive. 

You had to pass the police and military to get to check point 1. You checked in here. You were not allowed to photograph or use your phone, and your windows had to be rolled up the entire time. It was difficult to communicate, to say the very least.

Everybody there, besides being armed, were in protective gear; masks, shields and gloves and protective clothing.

You were then assigned on of the two lanes established for testing. Our lane was the "pole" position.

Check point two, about 500 yards away, you cracked your window and were given masks, and sanitizer, made at one of the bourbon distilleries here in Kentucky. You went through the identification process again, while being closely watched by military and police.

Another 200  yards away at the third check point, your ID was verified again along with your contact information. Window closed the entire time, they held up signs for you to read with the instructions, for the administering of the test. Once every member in the car verified they had read it, you were directed to the drive through testing tent, 100 yards away.

Military and police in full protective gear were all around, and the person administering the test asked us to slightly crack your window to receive test kits for every one in your vehicle. We took two. We were told to shut the window, and as we did you could here her shout our visable diagnosis to the person collecting data on the computer. (There was one of these at each check point)

It was a long stemmed cotton swab similar to a Qtip. It also contained a vial with liquid. You had to place the swab very far up your nose and rotate it twice, it was an extremely uncomfortable process causing your eyes to water with some minor pain. Then you had to do the other side the same way.

The administrator of the process stood in front of the car and "coached" you through the entire process. Then when completed both sides, you had to break the stem on the cotton swab, and place swab side down in the vial containing the liquid. Seal it and hand it back through a small cracked window.

You were blocked from leaving until they took possesion of each vial.

A bit unreal. Due to the test having some issues with false negatives, it will be 4 days prior to getting the "official" results.

We were told they (the state health department) would contact us if we were infected. With Covid19.

I did not know what to expect. I will assure you, I definitely did not expect anything like this.

There were two sides to my evaluation of the process.

First it was a bit unnerving to see the tight security, but having experience with this, previously, I understood the tight security and the constant reduntant measures for identification snd safety.

Second, for what was revealed to me, in this process, was the gravity of the consenquences of this virus. 

If this is overkill for the situation at hand, so be it. I would always recommend caution and prevention first. Especially now since it has been discovered it has mutated again, successfully, since March the research center in Los Alamos believes.

Stay safe.