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

Yes.

My wife tested positive last Thursday, I had mild symptoms from the Saturday but didn't test positive until the Monday.

It started as a bit of a headache and sore throat then moved on to blocked sinus type feeling with aches, pains and lethargy.
Bloody annoying really.

Meh. I assumed so. I feel a bit light headed, headache, slightly sore throat and not very 'with it'

I was hoping it was just me feeling sympathy! But I think it's in the post most likely

Yep, I'm an NHS employee.

Looking at the BBC news just now they are just about to change the rules for NHS employees

I might give allotment a visit later, 99. 9% that I can avoid any human contact in the round trip.

The NHS page makes no sense to me.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/when-to-self-isolate-and-what-to-do/

P.s. Another faint line today.

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As there are no more rules on isolation the NHS can't tell people what they should do, jus advise using a lot of non committal waffle....

had a week of the very feint line with no symptoms after 4-5 days of illness.
technically free to go about ones business but just went for walks and avoided getting near anyone especially older folks, think i went to the supermarket at about 9pm for milk/bread fully masked and was in/out in 5 min.
I don’t think you can feel guilty for going to the allotment when people will be going back to offices on day 5/6

my wife, baby and I all down with covid. came on pretty fast and quite aggressive. worse than a cold - headache, fug and temperature felt like migrane to me - the worse hours had a similar nauseous and disorienting feel to them. after 48 h just congestion and fatigue.
interestingly it stayed in upper respiratory tract for all of us...no breathing difficulties.

Sat down to eat a rump steak with bubble and squeak and grilled carrots to discover that I've lost my sense of taste and smell again. Fuck this noise.

I've regressed to a streaming head-cold so can't smell/taste either, else I've picked a regular cold up whilst isolating (wtf?).

Test in progress... edit +ve still.

My youngest was off school for 10 days with a virus of some sort. Tested negative 4 times at random intervals. I started to develop similar symptoms on Thursday but was LFT negative, until now. Strong, fast line.

Was fortunate to have a box of the nose only tests which did me all week. Back to the NHS T&T ones they're fucking useless, not nearly enough liquid in the vial to get a single drop once the swab absorbs it, squeezing until fingers hurt to try and get something from it. What is the point of these kits when they're so ineffective as to be useless?

Randox didn't need to have ex-MP Owen Paterson on a £100k/year retainer
to supply effective tesing kit to the NHS.

The economy of scale of reducing by 1ml per test the liquid supplied has covered at least a year of that I'm sure.

Woke up feeling much better this morning. 2nd time around has definitely been much easier than the 1st time. That said, definitely still worse than a cold. Sense of smell and taste only went for a couple of days. Weirdly, the brain fog is just as bad as when I was sick with Covid in March. Hopefully goes away quickly. I only had a couple of very faint LFT positives.

Have a high ish temperature, was alternatively freezing cold and very hot during the night last night. And headache. And a bit of a sore throat. This is third day.

Still testing negative.

Mr's EB is still testing positive.

This is weird because while I know exactly what you mean - the Randox NHS T&T ones are definitely tight with the liquid - we've used these a lot including recently through having Covid and never had a problem getting enough liquid for the test, in fact we always had leftovers.

IME you do have to give the liquid sachet/vial thing a good squeeze to get every drop out but the test only needs two drops (which is less than others).

It's strange though because I've seen this comment a lot so it's definitely not just you - I feel like there must be a reason people seem to have very different experiences.

At one point I was so rabidly infectious recently I made a video of how crazy quick the test was going positive to send to my family WhatsApp so you can see we really weren't having issues:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/itwqK1m4MToZmoZv6

I would like to add that this is in no way a defence of Owen Paterson or the other twats involved in procuring these tests.

Insta +ve is impressive.

I used 2 x buffer sachets this morning, but this means 1/2 as many tests per pack. I'm sad enough to count the drops into the vial, in the early days there would be 4 to 5, nowadays there's 3 and a bit. Allowing for absorption into the swab there used to be enough to get 2 drops out after, now there isn't.

Are you proper squeezing the buffer off the swab too? At first I was only pressing it against the side of the vial, but it's much more effective to squeeze both sides of the vial and squish it on the way out.

I'm squeezing the life out of it.

My wife tested positive on 17th June and finally tested clear on 1st July. She is the most determined person who never takes a day off sick. This has wiped the floor with her and she is still suffering from total exhaustion. I have somehow remained clear of covid but had pulled out of volunteering work etc in case I was carrying but asymptomatic.

She is so frustrated at feeling so low and unable to function normally, the combination of brain fog and tiredness is wearing her out. This is compounded by a cycle of one day feeling mildly better so doing too much and then another day of feeling like it’s back to square one.

It completely ruined my birthday weekend, friends flew over from Switzerland Friday and we had tickets for a concert on Saturday and a table at a great restaurant. My wife was unable to come on the Saturday. I had hoped the two days rest on Saturday and Sunday would have been good r&r but when I got back yesterday evening she was still run down.

Any tips on how to get over the exhaustion and brain fog?

You opening them before doing your swabbing? I had a bunch that were stingy on the liquid but waiting until the last second to open them after doing swabbing seemed to save enough from evaporating.

I will try this, ta.

I guess being mindful to try avoid this would be a good starting point?

one day feeling mildly better so doing too much

It's hard though. Hope she's on the mend.

I know, but try to point it out to someone who has been self employed all their life and is the co founder and CEO of a rapidly expanding business is a sensitive matter!