As our COVID numbers continue to perform gymnastics and the debate rages on about how long our quarantine period should be or if we should have one at all (God forbid we stop those capitalist wheels turning even while we’re coughing up half our lungs), I have a different question to put forward. Why, oh why, are we still being prevented from using home testing kits?

Now, before everyone goes bananas on me, I ask that you simply hear me out. During the Christmas holidays which were starting to feel like an extended version of ‘Squid Game’ where everyone was being dropped into quarantine left, right, and centre, several people I know came home from the UK.

Along with the pork pies, Scotch eggs and butter biscuits they packed into their suitcases, they brought with them rapid lateral flow coronavirus tests. Every few days, or whenever they knew they were going to meet someone particularly vulnerable, they would test themselves. This gave them a measure of peace of mind that was woefully absent for the rest of us, especially for the asymptomatic who only got tested to begin with because they needed a clean bill of health to go back to work, for example.

One of my friends had very few symptoms when he self-tested but still marked positive and was able to isolate himself immediately. By the time his symptoms were in full swing, he had already been safely inside for a while, which meant that he hadn’t spread the infection to anyone else. From what many people have told me, it would have taken him days to get a PCR test: this way he was able to take control of his situation and make the necessary arrangements without having to queue at a pharmacy and possibly infect others.

I should at least be allowed the chance to not unknowingly spread an illness that can still be fatal for some- Anna Marie Galea

And I haven’t even started speaking about the small fortune many have spent getting tested privately every few days while contact tracers struggle to keep up.

It’s very troubling how little the authorities seem to both trust us to help quell the spread as well as want us to share in the responsibility. I’m not saying that these tests should replace PCR tests and what we have in place already, but why shouldn’t we be afforded an extra layer of safety and the possibility to at least have a means of checking ourselves unofficially before we leave the house, if nothing else?

It not only smacks of paternalism that everything we do constantly needs to be policed but it also reflects how we appear to be viewed by the powers that be.

It also continues to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Not everyone can afford to test their whole family every few days privately while our health system is flooded and overwhelmed with requests that it can’t fulfil in a timely manner due to a lack of resources.

There is not much that I’m expecting from 2022 but it is high time that certain conversations about autonomy and collective responsibility start being had. If it’s been decided that a 16-year-old is mature enough to vote for the future of their country, I should at least be allowed the chance to not unknowingly spread an illness that can still be fatal for some. This pandemic is here to stay; at least allow us the opportunity to try to live through it better.