As unpleasant as a PCR test, but faster!

As soon as the government announced the option of antigen testing I booked the earliest possible slot — I wanted to fit in one more test before travelling to my parents. In the end I did three in total, the last one after the new year. Each one was different. Let me describe how.

Private lab

I was surprised by how many people chose this one. There was zero wait — I arrived slightly early and was called in straight away. They finally checked my identity against my insurance card (in summer they didn't bother). The surprise came while waiting for the result. The queue was substantial, keeping two metres apart was nearly impossible. You couldn't hear anything from the door, and the cold wasn't pleasant either. For my next test I chose a location in the city centre, at St. Anne's hospital.

State facility

On Christmas Eve I wasn't expecting massive queues and there weren't any. We waited briefly at registration. The man there was taking phone calls quite loudly, but didn't ask to see any ID. The nurse was quick and thorough. The waiting area was outside under a canopy, which wasn't as bad as before.

Non-profit

When I found out there was a chance my wife's grandparents were positive, I booked a test (it was very early in the morning). Not many slots left — the first free one was the following afternoon. It was lightning fast: at the entrance I was directed to the right queue, a lady scanned the QR code, I got a slip, and the swab was already in my nose. The technician took the slip and I was free to go. The result came by SMS in under 30 minutes! No paper, but what does paper matter when the important thing is knowing whether you're negative or positive (with some margin of error).

What to take away from this

Results by SMS are great, as is processing patients via QR code! If we'd had this kind of testing available in the autumn, maybe it would have changed something. But no point dwelling on what ifs.