But I'm also in Texas and we're having a COVID spike right now. I'm thinking about just waiting a couple weeks to see if there will be another dip, but if there isn't then the virus situation will be a couple weeks' worse with potentially no end in sight.
What would you do? Do you think we'll keep having a seesaw effect as restrictions are lifted and then re-instituted over and over, or do you think a lot of people are just done quarantining for good?
If you have, say, a 1% chance that the thing you have is fatal, well, you have a 1% chance of dying from Covid... if you get it. You aren't 100% certain to get it if you go to the doctor, though. In fact, it's probably in the single digits that you'll get it from a doctor's visit. (All numbers made up on the spot - I have no actual data.)
In fact, if your thing has some time urgency to it, maybe going now is the answer. My personal impression is that Texas isn't going to get better for a long time. Six months? Two years? It's not going to get better, and it may get worse.
Note well: I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. I'm just some random nobody on the internet, shooting my mouth off.
I was met in the lobby by 6 nurses and guards, told precisely where to stand and to answer 10 questions which were shouted to me by a frightened nurse. She moved forward, pointed a temperature gun at my forehead and then jumped back. It was as if I were about to be arrested; very unsettling.
Once "approved" an orange sticker was put on my shoulder and I was permitted to proceed to the hallway elevators. Once inside I began to notice discarded orange stickers at random in the building.
During my visit I asked my physician about all this. He said no one with covid symptoms is allowed in the bldg. Instead they're handled by tele-medicine and/or directed to a hospital or ER. He has seen NO covid patients at all, nor had his starr. Here was a medical doctor in the middle of a pandemic who had never seen a covid-19 patient: the irony of the situation apparently had long since escaped him.
Anyway, a medical center may be one of the safest places to go right now since a sick person, especially a covid-sick person, is unlikely to get past the guards! So likely covid will eventually enter these medical centers via the staff, cleaning workers (who can't afford to not work), someone fixing the windows, or suppliers, &c.
Unless you have covid I recommend you relax, go see your doctor and enjoy the theater of entering a locked-down secure and armed medical facility. Leave your handgun in your car or they might shoot you (seriously). Any quick move I made was immediately attended by multiple guards startling. Way, way too much caffeine and imagination is fueling these places!
And FWIW my cholesterol is really looking good!8-))
Aside: for a month I've been asking everyone 2 questions:
- do you know anyone who has/had covid?
- has anyone you know ever spoken of someone they know who has covid?
Results: only one person said "yes" to either question: he knew some workmen who had it: They worked through it b/c they'd lose their jobs otherwise.
So it appears covid is really, really rare, on the order of unicorns rare. I can see why some people believe the pandemic is a giant hoax.
Anyway, I think you'd be ok
Many people are forgoing routine checkups, and this will lead to extra death and morbidity going forward.
EDIT: also worth checking: some facilities have been set aside for non-covid symptom patients. In some areas, whole hospitals are this way.