Glad your son is doing better, sorry he had to go thru the testing. I have heard that hospitals do receive extra funding for each COVID-19 test that is positive and for each death caused by COVID-19.
Hm... Maybe I misunderstood. Now that I'm thinking about it - he actually said, "They pushed the q-tip in so hard it hurt" - maybe I just assumed it was his ear because that's usually where q-tips go. You're probably right.