Speaker 1: All right, let's start with something totally different today. I
told the story on the bonus show a couple of days ago. People said,
David, you've got to tell that story on the podcast, make a YouTube clip. I want to send
it to people. I would never send a clip of the bonus show to anyone who hasn't paid for it.
And so I'm going to tell this story. And it is the story of my girlfriend testing positive for
covid in Europe during our recent trip. Now, you're going to be able. Wait, wait, wait.
If you're if you're writing a comment, you should stop. You're going to have to first listen to the
story before commenting, because otherwise you're going to look really silly. Listen to the story
before you comment. When you look at the comments, you'll be able to tell who commented already. OK,
as many of you know, recently took a vacation to northwestern Spain. Beautiful vacation,
much needed break, fully vaccinated, both of us. We did all the things that you're supposed to do
providing proof of vaccination. When we went to Germany at the end of the trip for a layover ever,
we did everything. We had every document, we did the health app. And all of these different things
wore masks, everything, everything, everything good. Now, the US requires a covid test negative
to come back home no matter where you're coming from. Great. So you can always find a test abroad
and you've got to make sure that it's in a language that's accepted by the airlines and
you've got to make sure that it's the right type of test. And in places like Spain, where
everything's closed Sunday and they had a Catholic holiday the last Monday,
we knew it might be tough to get a test locally. So what did we do? There are now two tests,
one from Abbott and one from Illume, which are at home tests which are authorized for return travel
to the US. But you've got to have someone watch you via telehealth. You can't just do the tests
and then say, hey, great, I'm negative because it could have been somebody else who took it or who
knows what. You might not have done it correctly. So I ordered two of these tests. Fifty bucks each.
The fifty bucks includes the test, which you take with you and you schedule an appointment to have
someone observe you, making sure that you're swabbing or swabbing correctly as the term is.
And then if you're positive or negative, you get a PDF and it tells you and then you show that to
the airline. Great. So we're there. We're doing everything outdoors, everything's great. We have
a couple of friends. They are overlapping with us. They get their negative tests and they go home and
everything's good. And so we get ready for our appointments and we connect via telehealth and
you swab and then you put the swab into a liquid and then you put drops into a receiver,
which connects to your phone via Bluetooth and the person watches you and then they say
you did everything right. And a fifteen minute countdown starts on your phone. So we've got our
phones next to each other and it's counting down and it's counting down and it's counting down.
It gets to zero and my phone blinks and it says, Sir, you're negative for covid fantastic. And I
look over and my girlfriend's looking at her phone and it says, Ma'am, you are positive for covid.
And we say, OK, let's not go crazy. We read these tests have a two percent false positive rate.
They send us they sent us an extra third test just in case. So we re up and we get another telehealth
observation. And twenty minutes later she swabs and she puts it in. And then we've got we got the
countdown going. We're going. All right. There's probably not going to be two false positives.
And nobody, you know, everybody's nobody's symptomatic. And our friends had negative tests
and the fifteen minutes countdown and boom, a big plus sign. She is positive a second time. A second
time for covid-19. Now, at this point, we're just thinking two percent odds of a single positive
test, the odds of two of a single false positive test, the odds of two consecutive false positives,
the sheaffe covid. How could it be? We didn't go inside. We wore our masks. Everybody's fine.
How would I be negative? It does. But two in a row, I don't know. And the company says, listen.
We've never heard of two consecutive false positives in a row, but maybe get yourself
a picture now at this point, it's eight pm on a Sunday, I'm sorry, on a Saturday in Spain,
the day before a two day Catholic holiday. Where the hell are you going to get a PCR
test? I start calling around. No, no, everything's closed through a contact. We end up getting the
opportunity to get a PCR test at a hospital, 24 hour hospital. Our contacts go there.
Say you suspect you have a false positive. Nobody symptomatic. As one of my lights turned the story
so crazy, one of my lights turned off show up there. So we go. And I explained the situation
and an emergency room doctor comes out and says, you are breaking the law by being here while
potentially positive you got a positive test. You need to be in isolation. If you don't go home now,
we will call the police. And I try to explain. No, no, no. These are, you know,
less reliable at home tests. And I'm negative everybody. We're just trying to go home before
we call the police. At this point, we're shaken and things are getting pretty stressful. Is she
positive? Are we going to be stuck in Spain potentially for weeks? How do I do the show?
I've got to come back and talk about Afghanistan. People are emailing me saying, David, where did
you go? Come back and talk about Afghanistan? So we call our contact. Who says that should not have
happened? That is not the protocol. I'm going to have someone who works at the hospital meet you
and we're going to get you a PCR today. So we go back. Someone helps my girlfriend.
They do a full PCR normal test. The swab, it must have been two feet long. I've never seen a swab
this big. It was crazy. This is now like 10 p.m. and they say could be up to twenty four hours,
probably more like twelve. It was not a good night of sleep, I can tell you that,
because I'm thinking two positives in a row. This is not looking good. We're going to be stuck here.
I'm going to have to figure out how do I work from Spain for what would it be a week, two weeks,
three? I don't even know how long it's we're going to be stuck there. This is a disaster. Where are
we going to stay? We barely sleep. Eight thirty in the morning. I grab my phone and I have a message
negative. So negative in big capital letters. It was two false positives in a row are suspicions
that it didn't really make sense that there would be just one. I mean, listen, if we all get it
on a fluke, OK, it was spread, but everybody's negative except for her. It didn't make sense.
And fortunately, she was covert negative. We went onward on our trip to Frankfurt just for a layover
because of the scheduling of the flights. And now here's the really I hate to even bring this up,
but the truth is they barely even looked at our negative tests. I mean, I don't know, you know,
I'm against fake vaccine cards and I'm against faking negative tests. It's a reality that we
could have shown them almost anything. I mean, I pulled up my test results and they didn't look
at what was the test. You know, the rules are if it's a home test, it must be under observation.
And you've got to verify that it was under observation that the company signed off.
They said, show me your name. I said, here it is. They said, show me where it says negative. I said,
here it is. They said, show me the date here. It could have been anything. And the truth is.
Anybody could have I would never do this, anybody could have taken the PDF.
Taking a screenshot of it whited out where it said positive on her test and typed a negative
and there is no I mean, there's no central database of these tests. Nobody the woman at
Lufthansa who looked at the test ship, she has no idea whether it's a JPEG or a PDF. Could it
be edited or not? So as a system, you know, on principle, because you have three days to test
before your flight, you could test negative, then get sick and still be sick on the plane. I mean,
that's just the reality. People travel with colds, people travel with flu. That could happen.
But the ease with which one could just fake a negative test didn't fully inspire confidence.
And I mean, listen, I don't know what the answer is. I, I don't know. But fortunately,
it was actually negative. We didn't get stuck in Europe. And so I was here and I was able to do
the show Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That's the story. Now, what lessons did we learn? Number one,
I don't think it's worth the convenience of doing the test
at our accommodation. I don't think is worth the higher chance of a false positive, because
when they say add two percent chance of a false positive and you're, you know, at home before
the trip, that feels very different than getting two positives in a row and realizing you may not
be able to come back to the United States. So it just doesn't seem worth it. I think in the future,
if we do this again, I'll look for an actual local PCR test. The other thing is maybe there's going
to be no more international travel until you can come back just with a vaccine,
because truly, I mean, the possibility of just being stuck for what potentially would be weeks.
Was the trip great? Yeah, the trip was great. Would that have been worth it to get stuck there
for potentially weeks? I don't know about that. I don't know about that, but I'm glad it didn't
happen. So if you commented at the very beginning of this when I said my girlfriend tested positive,
hopefully you'll delete your comment now and realize that your comment doesn't make any
sense. She tested positive but was negative. And we could say, to quote Donald Trump, ultimately,
she tested positively from the standpoint of negative. In other words, no covid. That's the
important thing. Let me know your thoughts. You can find me on Twitter at David Pakman