Albus Potter, Classmates and Elves

Ch 45 Covid-19 Arrives

"All three of us have Covid-19," Richard informed Harry, on 18 March 2020, using his mobile. The Magic/Muggle Mobiles were fully integrated into the Muggle phone network. "They want you, and everyone you have come in contact with, to get tested."

"I will take care of it," Harry replied. Thinking back over what had happened last night, Harry realized that he had not been particularly careful. Harry was grateful that, apparently, the three Muggles had received test results so promptly, although he did not know if the test were run in the Muggle hospital or at St. Mungo's. Harry was sitting in his office, and he began to become very worried. He called St. Mungo's and told them what had happened.

"I'm healer Dr. Joseph Kearney," the healer told Harry. "I'm the infectious disease specialist here at St. Mungo's, and was with you in Switzerland. I know about the Smiths' Jane Clark's grandparents, although they are in a No-Maj hospital. We have a problem, potentially a big problem. I know that Britain has had very few deaths so far, but in Italy the number of deaths is in the hundreds a day and it is climbing fast. Where are you?"

"I'm in my office at the Ministry," Harry replied.

"That is not good, Harry," the healer observed. "That is potentially very not good. I am coming over to the Ministry with tests, and we are going to test everyone who you have been talking to. Then I want all of them to go home and isolate until they have two negative tests."

"Yes, sir," Harry replied, his heart heavy with guilt and anxiety.

Four healers from St. Mungo's arrived in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, all of them wearing rather frightening looking personal protective equipment. They tested Harry and thirteen other people who Harry had talked to or been close to. All of them were sent home to quarantine. It somewhat hollowed out the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but eventually the team from St. Mungo's were finished.

The team went home with Harry and tested Ginny, Minerva, Dobedo and Mabel, and told all of them to isolate. "We believe that Elves can pass Covid-19 on. We are not sure if they get sick, or if Covid-19 can just replicate in them, Harry," healer Kearney told Harry. "I want everybody in the Grimmauld Place/NewBright Street compound tested over the next two days."

Harry's test came back negative, as did the tests of the other people, but healer Kearney did not clear him or anyone else to go back to work. Harry was feeling fine, but he worked from home. Two days' later healer Kearney tested everybody in the Potter household again, and Harry, Ginny and Minerva all tested positive. That night Harry became very sick, and for the next week he was home, with a couple of real rough nights where he was close to going to St. Mungo's. Ginny was sick, just not as sick. Ginny was furious that she had been told she could not attend the scheduled Quidditch game, but as the day wore on she began to complain that her head felt fuzzy.

Toddler Minerva did not seem to be sick at all. This was less of a problem than it could have been, since Minerva was a very good child.

The morning of March twenty-second, when healer Kearney told Harry he had tested positive, he also told Harry, "The masks seem to have worked. No one you came in contact with in the Ministry tested positive. We are having some issues with people in the Grimmauld Place/NewBright Street area, however. It looks like the infection came from several people, and a fair number of people are having to quarantine and be retested."

"How are the Smiths' doing?" Harry asked the healer.

"I have been in touch with the Muggle hospital where they are being treated," healer Dr. Kearney replied. "They are afraid they are going to lose grandmother soon, and grandfather is not much better. Richard is back home recovering. Richard may have brought Covid-19 into the household. There is another person in the DPW LTD receiving department who has tested positive, and they may have caught it from a lorry driver. Richard's wife met with a couple of people who work at a care house where she once worked, so she may be how Covid-19 came into that house as well.