Spoiler alert: I tested negative!

Looks like the ‘normal’ campus life is another step closer as Dutch education bodies now hand out free Covid selftest kits for university students and employees. Ideally, offline courses and working in office will be made possible when we regularly test ourselves with the selftest.

Currently I’m able to apply for 4 test kits every 2 weeks. The selftest kits are delivered by PostNL to my mailbox. You can get it at this link: https://www.zelftestonderwijs.nl/

Although not famous for its accuracy, Covid selftest kits are now widely used in industries that request frequent tests, such as for railway employees in the UK. It only takes 15 minutes to get a test with this kit.

And this kit costs 4 euros in Etos. Sounds like a real bargain that we can get it for free.

Such a long swab. The introduction suggests that you only need to get this thing 2 cm in your nose, and twist for several seconds (while holding off your sneeze I guess). Pretty simple.

RIP my nostril.

Then put the swab into the liquid-reagent. Squeeze the test tube to make sure everything on that swab is in the tube (ewwwww). Put the head of the test tube on.

Now the instruction emphasised that you drop exactly 4 drops on the test kit. But it also says it’s no big deal if you dropped 5.

Read the test result within 15-30 minutes. The C (control) line suggests a valid result, without this line any result is invalid. If you see a read line at T, that’s a positive result and you’d better contact for further GGD test.

See! I’m as negative as it gets.

Get your test kit here: https://www.zelftestonderwijs.nl/ and see you on campus later.

(Account from a participating university needed, incl. EUR)