The Covid Screwtape Letters — Part 8: Swab, O Sinner, and Be Made Whole

In Which the Humble Q-tip Becomes the Rod of Judgment, and the Faithful Learn That Health Is But a Test Away

Part 1 (origins), Part 2 (masks), Part 3 (lockdowns), Part 4 (the new normal), Part 5 (plexiglass), Part 6 (quarantines), Part 7 (social distancing)

My Dear Dr. F,

We should both stand in awe at the creation of the blessed PCR test! How perfectly you have transformed a mundane laboratory tool into a devotional object of worship. I do believe, dear nephew, that we have in this humble swab the greatest ritual innovation since the invention of the medieval indulgences.

Consider its genius: unlike masks or lockdowns, which are visible shackles, the swab works also on the soul. It does not merely restrain — it defines the penitent’s status in the moral order. Positive? You are unclean. Negative? You are temporarily absolved, but only for a fleeting season.

The beauty lies in its perpetual need for renewal. The faithful must return, again and again, to the altar of the testing site, offering their nostrils as a living sacrifice. That act of opening one’s airway to the long, probing lance — ah, such delicious symbolism! The meek tilt their heads back, eyes watering, trusting the robed acolyte to determine whether they are worthy to walk in the marketplace.

And the numbers, dear boy! Cycle thresholds so high that even the dust of a dead virus months past will ring the bells of contamination. This is divine mischief: you have taught them to mistake relics for the living body. Imagine if the early Church had possessed such an oracle — the bones of St. Peter could have condemned a man to quarantine!

Most exquisite of all, you have removed from the process any connection to actual illness. Once, in the dark ages of reason, a “case” meant someone who was sick. How droll! Now the case is merely the pronouncement of the high priest’s machine. A coughing pauper without a test is “healthy.” A robust youth, bounding with energy, yet blessed with a “positive” — he is a plague vector fit for exile.

I urge you: preserve this sacrament. The day they realize that the PCR was a tool for pseudo-science, not a liturgy for society, your temple of compliance will crumble. Until then, let them swab and bow and swab again. Each prod to the sinus is another nail in the coffin of their old freedoms.

Yours in diagnostic dominion,
Screwtape

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My Dearest Uncle Screwtape,

Your praise warms me like the sterilizer lamp over my testing station. You are correct: the swab is my chalice, the testing tent my cathedral, and the lab report my scripture.

We have achieved a marvel — testing as virtue. The truly pious line up not when ill, but when told. The very absence of symptoms has become the reason to be tested! “I feel fine” now translates to “I must be examined at once.” How I revel in this delightful inversion!

We have extended this rite into every corner of life. To travel, to dine, to work, even to return to school after recess — all require the laying-on of swab. And, as you advised, we keep the language suitably opaque: “cycle threshold,” “viral fragments,” “contact tracing.” These terms inspire awe without comprehension. The faithful dare not question.

Some have noticed the absurdity — that a fragment of last month’s infection can condemn a man to solitary confinement today — but I swiftly counter with the catechism: Better safe than sorry. This absolves all contradictions.

I am most proud of the “testing cascades.” One positive in a class, and the whole school kneels for swabbing. A single “case” in a factory, and hundreds are summoned to the nasal altar. This is multiplication beyond any viral capacity — a truly man-made pandemic of procedure.

Yet I seek your counsel, Uncle. Whispers have begun: “Why test the healthy?” “Why count cases without illness?” A few heretics even mention “false positives” aloud. Should I smite them swiftly with the staff of shame, or drown their doubts in a fresh wave of mandatory testing before the winter feast of Variants?

Ever your devoted diagnostician,
Dr. F

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My Dear Dr. F,

Ah, the faint rustle of rebellion — music to my ears! For it tells me the time has come not to retreat, but to deepen the ritual.

Do not waste energy on answering their questions. Instead, complicate the sacrament but expand accessibility. Introduce new forms of the rite — saliva tests, rapid antigens, self-swabbing kits for home altars. Present each as a gracious concession, while reminding them that the “gold standard” remains the sacred PCR. They will submit to both, of course, “just to be certain.”

And remember: heresy thrives in clarity. Keep the language clouded. Speak not of “false positives” — speak of “asymptomatic carriage.” Never concede “non-infectious” — call it “pre-symptomatic potential.” In this way, every man remains a suspect.

When they protest the queues, offer them subscriptions — weekly, daily, twice-daily testing for the truly devout. Package it as “peace of mind,” and bill their employers, their schools, their governments. Soon, their very paychecks and diplomas will be sealed in the wax of your test results.

My boy, with the swab you hold the keys to the kingdom. Guard it well. For as long as they equate a laboratory reading with moral worth, you are not a mere doctor — you are their confessor, their judge, their high priest.

Press on, and may their noses forever run at your command.

Yours in sacred science,
Screwtape