The most crushing thing about getting Covid so late? Knowing I’m not a medical marvel | Andy Welch

Until last week, I was one of the 15% of people who had never had Covid. Now, like many in this new wave, I've succumbed

Two lines? Really? There must be some mistake. This was what went through my head last week, on seeing my first positive lateral flow test. Ah, maybe it's a duff test, I thought, sitting at the foot of my bed feeling slightly shocked but otherwise absolutely fine and symptomless. So I did another one.

That was positive, too, the line next to the little T so thick and vibrant it seemed to be animated on the test strip. Would a third be wasteful? And seeing as I believed every negative test to be accurate, why should the positive be so much less trustworthy?

Andy Welch is an assistant production editor at the Guardian

This article has been amended to correct the lateral flow test indicator from C to T.