The enigma of this pandemic
Heading home Wednesday afternoon on the long train ride to Pittsburgh from New York, my one-and-only read me something that had just popped up on her news feed.
The New York Times reported that a part-time usher at a Broadway theater had tested positive for COVID-19. It was the same small theater where we’d seen a play the night before.
Details were thin, but the usher had worked five performances of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” from March 3 to 7, at the Edwin Booth Theater on West 45th Street. This person evidently wasn’t there our night, the 10th, but had worked the mezzanine section for four of the five performances.
That’s where we’d sat. There are only 252 seats in the section. Ours were in the front row.
Who’s afraid of the Edwin Booth? Neither of us were overly worried, but we decided it might be prudent to hole up at home for most of the weekend. There have been a lot of things I’ve wanted to be called in this life, but none of them have been Pittsburgh’s Patient Zero.
I’d emailed the office from the train to say I’d work from home, saying only that I’d had a bit of a cough. (No lie that; my cold predated our night at the theater and our nine days in Boston and New York.) I told the bosses that I’d go through virtual copies of 1918 newspapers and come up with a column on how Pittsburgh dealt with the Spanish Flu epidemic of that year.
But as I was reading things like the Oct. 17, 1918, Pittsburgh Gazette Times story on how Fifth Avenue High wouldn’t be able to play football in Donora because the city Department of Hygiene had banned out-of -town games, and the Oct. 25 headline on Page 14, “Epidemic Takes 25 in Sharon and Vicinity,” I thought maybe I ought to be seeing to myself.
It was an unfittingly beautiful afternoon for a walk Thursday, so I strode the few blocks down to Rite Aid to get my first flu shot since the Ford administration. I asked the pharmacist how I might be tested for the virus, and he suggested calling my primary care doctor.
I did, and was given a phone number for the Allegheny County Health Department. I called at 2:30 p.m. The line was busy and stayed busy on each succeeding call until 3:15 p.m., when I got through to a pleasant feminine robot that assured me, over and over, “All of our agents are busy seeing other customers. Please hold and your call will be answered as quickly as possible.”
In the 55 minutes I waited for a human to pick up the phone, I learned that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had ordered all the Broadway theaters closed.
When I finally got through, I shared my story — and also shared that I could be writing about this for the PG. I was told I should be getting a call back soon — and I got one.
I didn’t meet the requirements for state testing because I hadn’t been in direct contact with anyone who had been to a “target country.” (Coincidentally, my 22year-old daughter flew home from Italy on Wednesday night, but she’s staying with her mother and I’ve been keeping my distance, wary of the potential irony of her making it out of Rome just under the wire only to pick up the earthshaking bug from her old man.)
I also didn’t meet the Allegheny County requirements for testing because I hadn’t been in close contact with a confirmed case. Nor did I have the symptoms of respiratory distress or a fever. Turning 64 this month meant nothing either. When I mentioned a possible column on this, I was soon talking to the official county spokesman, who told me even less.
The long and the short of this is that we’re not living in South Korea or Australia, where testing has been extensive and systematic. There haven’t been enough tests to go around. President Donald Trump announced Friday afternoon that the U.S. is ramping up its efforts, initiating a website that could lead to drive-thru testing opportunities. Until such testing is readily available, those of us who may have been exposed aren’t going to know for sure.
I’ll stay home through Monday. If I feel OK on Tuesday, seven days after my night at the theater, would it be responsible to go into the newsroom, a government building, another person’s home?
Since we’re living in the era of buck-passing, I think I’ll let my bosses decide if I should await tests. As I write, I’m still not sure if I even qualify for them. But the bright side is I have plenty of time to distract myself with stories of the 1918 flu epidemic.