If in a given sample size of N
a growing portion comes back positive,
you must yet understand that most will live
and those who die just once can’t die again;
if, in other words, leads thus to then;
it’s simple logic; I could for instance give
more tests, but aren’t outcomes causative?
We are not abstract models; we are men.
Have I been feeling slightly ill for days?
Will this cough persist, or disappear?
These are questions of the spirit. Science wills
its best conclusions into being; haz-
y reason is a sickness too, and fear,
not viral fever, clouds the mind and kills.
Jacob Bacharach 
i enjoyed this poem
speaking of “more tests” and also, by implication, less tests – my medicare advantage plan – from k**s*r p*rm*n*nt* – will not test me now based on my suspicion that i might have had covid-19 in january and february, when an upper respiratory infection made me as sick as i had been since i needed my gall bladder removed – no fever, but plenty of cough, and loss of sense of smell and taste –
they argue that even if i had antibodies then, they may not have persisted – and even if they still persist, it is not possible to conclude that i would be protected again re-infection – so since there are no action implications of any particular test result, why bother?
i find their reasoning convincing
meanwhile my personal physician at the plan has retired – in picking a new one, i considered an old guy who knows about aging from personal experience [but who might, in a few years, retire on me like this last guy] or a younger guy with good reviews from retirement home residents – i chose the latter
as buddha’s contemplations point out, no one escapes aging, illness, death, separation from the people and things we love, and reaping the consequences of our good and evil actions