No, it’s not what you think! As part of the Thailand Test and Go program, visitors are required to take two Covid tests: one on arrival and one seven days later. The irony is that once you’ve tested negative for your first test, you are free to go anywhere in the country, potentially infecting people along the way. That isn’t the last of the ironies surrounding this program.
My friend Vora entered Thailand under the first iteration of the program, where you were tested on arrival and given a kit to test on your own seven days later. There was no follow up; only the expectation that you would report yourself if you tested positive. Needless to say, she didn’t bother with the second test.
By the time we entered Thailand, they had tightened up restrictions a bit, and we were required to get our second test at a government approved hospital. No one at the hotel seemed to know much about the follow up testing, probably because it was a new requirement, and they had no role in it. They did show me a print out, with a list of hospitals, which I photographed.
The hospital they recommended was about an hour from our hotel. I wondered why the local hospital where we’d taken our original test wasn’t on the list. After a little research, I was able to find a government website with all the hospitals listed, and it turned out there was an approved facility just a short walk from the hotel. I’m not sure why the hotel staff didn’t mention that one when I asked.
We walked over to the hospital with our documentation in hand: pink slips written entirely in Thai that I assumed would inform the staff what was needed. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the hospital, there was a sign stating that they were on their lunch hour, so we decided to have lunch ourselves.
When we returned to the test center, there was a huge crowd of people huddled beneath a tent at the test site. With the outside temperature at 94 degrees, no one wanted to be out in the direct sun. There were three lines leading out from the test center, and I assumed we needed to be in one of them, but all the signs at the counter were in Thai, so I just got in the line with the greatest number of white people in it. It was the middle line, with the number one above the window, and it turned out to be the correct one.
I wondered why window number one was placed between windows two and three. It created the physical necessity of crossing through each of the lines of people in order to move to the subsequent window. As I stood in line, I noticed a woman fanning a young girl who clearly looked feverish, and it occurred to me that it was absurd to have, in the same space, the people who were testing to meet requirements and the people testing because they had symptoms. This concern was confirmed by the woman standing behind me who said that she was there because she was symptomatic.
When I got to the window, I handed the woman our pink Test and Go slips. She took photos of our passports and gestured for me to go wait, unable to communicate how I would know when I was done waiting. I decided it would be best to wait outside the tent, even if it meant being under the beating sun. The trouble is that I really didn’t know how to know when it was my turn to be tested. At the very least, I remembered the people who were in line before me so I could watch for them to go forward for their testing.
Line number three, the one for the actual test, had not moved during the entire time I waited to check in, and I noticed it was because there was no tester at the window. As I looked to the other side of the facility, I realized that the same technician was administering tests for both sides of the test center. She would test a handful of people on one side and then switch to our side to test another handful. It was clear this was not going to be a quick task.
I watched as the tester put her hands through rubber sleeves attached to the partition between her and the person being tested. Apparently the rubber sleeves were not enough to protect against transmission because she also put on a new pair of surgical gloves between each test. Watching her try to get the surgical gloves on over the rubber sleeves was like watching an octopus put a condom on each of its eight legs, and this had to happen between each test!
The other thing I noticed about the process they used for taking nasal swabs is that the vials for the completed swabs were all located on the side of the counter opposite the side of the technician. That meant that all the tests for the day could have been compromised if they had forgotten to collect the sample tray or someone had tampered with the vials. Fortunately Thailand is a country where people follow the rules so the odds for that happening were fairly low.
While regarding the testing process, I noticed that one of the people, who had been in line before me, was now standing in front of window number two so I headed over there myself, trying to remain outside the tent area while observing what happened next. A technician would open a window, place a handful of labeled vials in a holder and then read out names over a rudimentary intercom system. I think even the Thai people had trouble recognizing their names when they were called, and I had no hope for mine.
The next problem presented itself when the person had to figure out which vial was theirs. The vials had labels with names printed on them, but the printing was so small that each person would inevitably end up lifting and turning every vial to figure out which was theirs; yet another opportunity for the sick to contaminate the healthy at the testing station.
I probably waited for another hour before I finally heard my name called. The technician asked to confirm my ID and told me I could cross the room to the testing line with my vial. The problem was that I had come with Joan and, though I had handed in our pink slips together, her vial was not brought out at the same time as mine.
I knew better than to be pushy in a country where I was a visitor, so after waiting another 30 minutes, I politely asked if they had Joan’s vial since we had arrived together. The technician took another photo of Joan’s passport and walked away, though she never returned to follow up. Joan mentioned to me that, in addition to the cross contamination of people waiting for their Covid test, it was also unsettling that the technicians were taking multiple photos of our passports on their personal phones.
Another 30 minutes later, I asked again, this time to a different technician who took yet a third picture of Joan’s passport and headed back to the woman on the computer whose job I assumed it was to print out the labels. I did share with Joan that it was promising that there were only 3 people left inside the testing tent, and she would inevitably be called soon. That turned out not to be a correct assumption.
Instead of just asking the names of the 3 people remaining inside the tent and giving them their vials, the technicians continued to place vials in the holder and call out names over the intercom. I can only assume that the people not coming forward had long since gone home, having tired of the wait, and figured they’d infect less people by staying home than coming in to confirm they had Covid-19.
As closing time rolled around for the testing center, the technicians eventually realized what I had 30 minutes before: that it would be more efficient to just print out the names on the vials for the 3 remaining people in the tent. Joan got in line to take her test an hour and a half after I took mine despite the fact that we had presented both of our test slips at the same time.
We walked home exhausted and disappointed that we had spent half our day waiting to get our Covid tests, and while we expected the tests to be negative, we were quite certain we managed to pick up Covid while waiting to be tested. Fortunately, we would not be required to test again, and who knows how they would have even located us once we left our hotel.
