Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Positive test. Isolation for 10 days.

Things that are fucked:

• Ayla's first birthday (Saturday)
  
• 2nd Vaccine (was supposed to be yesterday)
  
• Holiday to France in August before Siona goes back to work from maternity
  
  

FFS

ah fucking balls, sorry!

Annoying! Hope it’s not too serious for those effected.

We’ve had one return negative, still awaiting 3 others. Supposed to be heading to a wedding tomorrow for 4 days. My mum, who is looking after the kids, can’t leave till we get our results.

Thanks both. Literally zero symptoms for me. I had a minor headache when I woke up on Sunday but I think it was from being in the garden / not drinking enough water on Saturday.

We were asked to take the tests by our GP as Ayla came out in a rash in the last 48 hours. It really just looks like heat rash (which would make sense given the timing) but the GP mentioned a lot of young children seem to have a rash with COVID.

Ayla's test came back negative but that could be because sticking a nasal swab up an 11 month old child's nose isn't easy or that the rash is a sign that the virus is exiting the body (no idea if PCRs pick that up or not). Mine came back positive and my wife is still waiting.

It's the last fucking straw for my wife though - she's really not in a good place mentally so it's going to be a tough 10 days as well as dealing with all the knock on effects like the holiday.

Is there much info on what the circumstances of people spreading it are?

Cases are high, its spreading like wildfire, are people spreading it because theyre untested and symptomless, or because they just don’t care and aren’t isolating even if they’re positive?

Oof, my daughter has just exploded with something the doc said looked like a Viral rash. Might be test time!

Sympathies on the rest - my wife has just gone back to work, coinciding with our daughter starting nursery. So far she's been sent home with a temperature on average twice a week, had tonsilitis (passed on to me and my wife) and now the rash. Just one thing after another.

Sorry to hear that. We're on day 5 of our 10 days. Good news is that I've finally got no excuse for doing all of the various jobs around the house and giving each room a deep clean.

ONS tests today and the nurse said the best course of action for us is just not get daughter tested this time round to avoid T&T shitting the bed over a second positive test within a week.

Obviously our plans will be further scuppered if either myself or Mrs GB test positive but if we do then further isolation is obviously the right thing to do. Hoping that we actually get the results before our current isolation ends.

Are you going to follow up with PCR tests?

Ayla's test came back negative but that could be because sticking a nasal swab up an 11 month old child's nose isn't easy or that the rash is a sign that the virus is exiting the body (no idea if PCRs pick that up or not).

A PCR test is thousands of times more sensitive than LFT. Even a half arsed attempt at swabbing an 11 month old should give enough for the test to be conclusive.

It's definitely worth getting everyone PCR tested as having partially overlapping isolation periods is even more annoying, better to get it all done at the same time if you've all got a chance of being infected. A positive lateral flow is enough justification to order the home PCR tests (even for people with no symptoms) and they are sorted really quickly, our situation was:-

• Friday 4pm - asymptomatic daughter positive lateral flow (myself and wife negative, also no symptoms) reported to gov.uk website - we begin to isolate and cancel plans for that evening
  
• Friday 5pm - order home PCR tests via the gov.uk website
  
• Saturday 8am - PCR tests arrived
  
• Saturday 9am - PCR tests done and put in the local postbox
  
• Sunday 10pm - PCR test results by text/email (for myself and daughter)
  
• Monday midday - PCR test for Mrs GB arrives by text/email
  
  

The isolation begins on the date of the positive lateral flow test (Friday in our case) assuming you report it to the gov.uk site and begin isolating then.

You are contagious up to two days before any symptoms - so adding in those that are asymptomatic, pretty much everyone has the ability to pass it on to someone else while they have no idea they are doing do. If the average infected person infect more than 1 person cases will grow exponentially. As we now have virtually no restrictions on daily life - this is pretty much guaranteed.

Oof, my daughter has just exploded with something the doc said looked like a Viral rash. Might be test time!

I would probably do it to be safe. As I said, hers came back negative but that could be because it's already left her system or because it's impossible to administer the test properly with an 11 month old.

Fingers crossed it's negative.

A PCR test is thousands of times more sensitive than LFT. Even a half arsed attempt at swabbing an 11 month old should give enough for the test to be conclusive.

Good to know. What about antigens if it's gone out of her system in the last few days?

Siona has now come back negative so it's just me. I've left the house once in the last 8 days to go to a dead M&S where I was in for 5 mins, used auto tills and used sanitiser / washed hands when I returned. In contrast they've been to baby classes, other peoples houses as well as picnics with other kids etc. I'm struggling to see how I would be the only one testing positive.

Just spoken to our friend who stayed with us for a few days, she came down to us on Wednesday the 14th, and left on Monday 19th, We didn't go out on Wednesday but did, Thursday/Friday and Saturday, she got pinged last night to say she had come into contact with someone who has tested positive on the Thursday, neither my wife or I have been pinged. The only time she wasn't with us on the Thursday was when she went to loo. She doesn't understand how we haven't been pinged.

Is there anything we can do to help?

Hope you are staying sane/entertained.

How long does the app say she has to isolate for? That should give you a hint as to when the initial contact was.

[EDIT] As I understand it, you have to isolate for a full 10 days after the contact that triggered it - the day of the initial contact does not count as part of the 10 days. If it took the person a few days to get tested and find out they were positive this will be taken into account.

Well, dick bosses and government

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Yup.

Not arguing with you, them why would gf be pinged to isolate for 3 days.

2 negative out of 4 so far. It’s annoying how spread out the results are given we all took them at the same time and place.

Not arguing with you, them why would gf be pinged to isolate for 3 days.

Because she might have had contact with someone 6/7 days before they eventually tested positive with a confirmatory PCR test.

For example:-

t=0 contact
t=2 symptoms appear, orders lateral flow tests
t=3 lateral flow tests arrive
t=4 does lateral flow test, positive, books PCR test
t=5 does PCR test
t=6 positive result comes in late in the day, too late for T&T to call
t=7 T&T call comes in, names contacts from two days before symptoms first appeared (t=2) and your gf is named

Similar theoretical thing if pinged via the app as when you get the positive confirmatory PCR result you also get a code to enter into the app to alert any contacts from there.

Getting the contacts to isolate for a full 10 days from 7 days in doesn't make sense. If they'd been contacted on day 0 they'd be isolating for 10 days, so if it takes 7 days to get the contact info then it makes sense for them to only isolate for the remaining 3 days. The assumption is that anyone who'd noticed symptoms themselves would have started isolating anyway or would have done a LFT. But this shows just how much it can spread given how many people are asymptomatic and the inherent delays between infection and symptoms and between wanting a test and getting a confirmatory PCR result.

In our own example it was 3 days from positive lateral flow test to actually talking to T&T about any contacts.

t=0 positive lateral flow test, pcr tests ordered
t=1 pcr tests done and sent off
t=2 pcr result positive (for daughter, negative for myself/wife) but 10pm so too late for T&T to ring
t=3 T&T ring and we talk about contacts in the two days before the first test (so t=-1 and t=-2 in this example).

So, by the time that T&T would be contacting anyone she had been in contact with it would already be 3, 4 or 5 day old news.

I think we're talking about app pings. For that your phone stores a list of every phone it's been in contact with and when. When one of those numbers shows up on the daily bad list then your phone has the precise date of contact stored, so it can calculate how long you should isolate for.

(though dates aren't exposed in the UI)

Understand the time to get things sorted listed.
There is no compulsion to get any tests if you are asymptomatic. You would hope people get tested.

Gf did to be sure, and I isolated even tho no notification and tested also to be on the safe side.

Yes, that's kind of what I meant too.

If pinged the app doesn't tell everyone to isolate for 10 days, someone might get told "isolate for 8 days" in which case the contact date can be inferred (although it's usually one day earlier than you think as you have to isolate for 10 full days so a contact on a Monday would mean the 10 days starts on the Tuesday and runs to the end of the following Thursday).

The main point is that there is a delay between contact and that person getting a confirmed positive PCR test which means hardly anyone will ever get told to isolate for the full 10 days. This is the same whether it is app based ping or T&T calling you to let you know.

23rd June I wrote (https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16057160/):-

Hmm, but the daily death numbers are beginning to rise. Last 7 days is 101 which is up 35 or 53.0%, that's the early signs of exponential growth there too (albeit at low numbers so sensitivity is sky high).

As with most things like this, we'll have more of an idea in 14 days. If the 7 day death figure is up to or over 200 on the 6th July then we're right back in the thick of it - the question will be whether it plateaus early if the cases/hospitilisations figures continue to rise.

(Death numbers from: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ )

7 day death figure is now 366 and the log plot of the deaths graph is a depressingly upward sloping straight line. Hospitalisations and patients on mechanical ventilation graphs are also rising exponentially.

Are the Government banking on all schools being finished by the end of this week being some kind of magic circuit breaker?

I can only think that that, and the required testing for people traveling (that will start to pick up many more asymptomatic cases) are the only hope for them to see that they might need to bring back some of the restrictions. That or that many service businesses (pubs/restaurants/hotels/etc) will have to shut due to staff shortages.

Ugh.

Aye, and sometimes it seems surprising quite how long the delay is.

Back in January my wife (NHS worker) had a positive LFT on a Wednesday morning, before she left for work. Her hospital booked her a PCR test for 10am, and she had the positive result by 4 or 5pm.

I was texted by Test and Trace on the Saturday morning, by which time my house arrest only had another week to run, to the following Saturday.

I reckon those circumstances are close to the ideal for T&T to get in touch quickly, and it was still 60-odd hours from confirmed positive result to their contact with me - 2 1/2-3 days.