EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | CONTACT
Before Australians took matters into their own hands by creating Facebook groups dedicated to alerting each other of the approximate waiting times for testing, there was reportedly another way you could find active testing sites – the presence of fresh, pungent urine.
As hundreds of thousands of Aussies trickled into states after the border reopening, testing clinics and hospitals were woefully unprepared for the onslaught of testing, which the government would have had no way of predicting be so disastrous given they only had two years to prepare.
Citing that a PCR test was needed to determine covid results, and with many people not wanting to risk the health of their relatives, there was no choice but to line up for hours in the scorching heat and take up the already stretched out medical resources. A plight that would have been bad enough if people’s efforts meant they were even able to get tested.
But as many frustrated Queenslanders will testify, numerous pathology sites were shut down across Christmas time without so much as a single Facebook post or update on a government website, resulting in sick people venturing across multiple sites to find testing.
“I went to five sites in one day”, says Betoota Grove resident Amanda Parker [28], “every single one of them had a sign saying it was closed.”
Another resident, Kevin Waites [36], says he tried 4cyte pathology but that he’d had to go to a QML after waiting 475 hours for the results.
“It’s fucking bullshit; I thought I might have been a close contact but definitely know I’m one now if the bloke coughing up a lung behind me was anything to go by.”
So long are the lines that many people who require mandatory testing have had to make dire decisions to keep their place, or risk not being able to return to work or get surgery.
From pissing in bottles to wearing nappies, or just straight upholding in urine so long that they’ve had to go to the hospital, there’s been somewhat of a bleak acceptance that soiling yourself in a line is the only option available – a move that truly exemplifies what a steaming crock of shit the government is.
On the brighter side, Aussies are now reporting that it’s much easier to spot an active testing line by how vibrant the colour of piss bottles are, which are said to have the bioluminescence of fireflies, especially when spotted during the twilight hours.
More to come.
