Hopefully fewer than if I'd gone "it's just a cold, I do what I want" but let's run with it.

Best guess is COVID-19 has a median incubation period of 5 days. So. My wife started feeling sniffly Wednesday evening to Thursday morning; we were on a fully-packed 737-900 with 225 people, two pilots and four crew. Did everyone get sick? No, because I didn't get sick until five days after my wife got sick (and my daughter has yet to get sick) so all three of us were likely shedding viruses on three sets of rental gear, shedding viruses in two restaurants a day, shedding viruses at a museum, shedding viruses at an airport, shedding viruses on a fully-packed 737-900 with 225 people, two pilots and four crew (again).

Nobody at my wife's work has felt sick yet, despite the likelihood that I caught it from her, despite the fact that viral shedding persists from 8 to 37 days past contraction according to what data we can find. If nothing else that means that our procedures at the birth center are working but it also means that we've had hundreds of patients and relatives exposed in the three weeks we've been back.

Let's say I pay for that test. I'm out $1500 and if it comes back negative, I know I don't have coronavirus right now. Let's say it comes back positive. Five families are out of work and an entire clinic caseload of screened low-risk patients gets launched onto the public health system.

This is probably about where I mention we've got four acute-care patients coming in tomorrow with symptoms of coronavirus, who were not tested for coronavirus at the emergency room but were instead told to follow up with their primary care provider. In other words, "we don't have the wherewithal to deal with you, go infect your family doctor on Monday."

What we've been dealing with is "what can we fob off on telemedicine" and "what do we have to do in person" and suppose I've dropped $1500 to shut my business down. From a public health standpoint do we tell our staff and all our patients to self-isolate and seek testing? Can they get testing considering my test is a self-report? I mean, we've had zero infectious disease communication; I suppose we report to the Department of Health but at this point they've demonstrated they'd rather we keep our patients out of their system. And really, if the test is telling me what I already know, is my moral duty to shut everything down and fob it off on a system that has far more crucial patients than a bunch of pregnant women in their late '20s or is my moral duty to go "you know what we're all going to have CV sooner or later so let's soldier on?"

Perhaps most importantly, now that enough time has passed that my wife is no longer symptomatic and I'm on the mend, If I've traced my exposure back to "an airline flight a full calendar month ago" how deep in the shit are we already?

Alaska has one (1) confirmed case of COVID-19. How much testing do you think they're doing?