How do you currently handle Covid infections?
How do you currently handle Covid infections?
Should I still isolate myself after a positive test? Is it ok to do my own shopping (with a mask) or should I call someone? Do I still wait for a negative test or simply to be free of symptoms? Since people around me don't really talk about Covid anymore and my country doesn't have any guidelines in place, I'd be interested in your takes. I don't wanna be a d*ck to others but would also rather not overshoot and lock myself up at home for two weeks like in the early days. (I hope this doesn't count as asking for medical advice.)
Edit: Thanks y'all. Guess I just needed to hear that even though everyone has been talking of "after Covid", the situation hasn't fundamentally changed despite our lives having normalized. I'll be cancelling plans and staying home.
Should I still isolate myself after a positive test?
Yes. You can still infect others and others can still have long covid reactions or complications.
Is it ok to do my own shopping (with a mask) or should I call someone?
No, because that is not isolation. The vast majority of supermarkets these days do parking lot pick up or even home delivery
Do I still wait for a negative test or simply to be free of symptoms?
According to the CDC, you can end isolation after a negative test. I would strongly encourage after TWO negative tests because the home testers are far from perfect. The last time I had covid I tested after my symptoms were "mostly gone" and once I had a negative morning test I then did an evening test to confirm.
But, above all: Even if you refuse to acknowledge that covid is serious, you can go a long way by treating it like the flu. If you are sick, don't go out in public. Don't cough on people or sneeze on people. And if you are at all concerned you are sick, wear a mask indoors to avoid spreading it to others.
88Sorry I don't think it's true that the CDC recommends isolating until you have a negative test.
You might still have antigens and therefore test positive for many weeks after no longer being infectious.
There's a page at the CDC that says if you suspect you have covid then isolate, test after a few days, then if you test negative you can end isolation. If you test positive then you need to isolate for 5 days or something.
If you test positive you don't need to wait for a negative result.
-3Culture starts at the top. Set a good example. Send people home when they are sick. If you don’t enforce your culture people will make up their own.
2
If you get sick with ANY infectious disease you should stay home and isolate. End of.
85One of the silver linings of covid is that this has become the norm. I remember how much I used to be shamed for staying home with minor infections, now if anything the opposite is the case.
13This. I can't get half my employees to follow this. Feel like they got to come in or will let people down. Drives me nuts. At minimum give me noticed and I will try and work you alone somewhere if you feel you must work.
As said, if you're sick, stay home. If everyone did this, there would be far fewer colds and flu and less chances of some new COVID like strain.
7
I had COVID a couple months ago. I was told to strictly self-isolate for two weeks after my first day of symptoms. That meant not leaving my house, even if masked. I was also told to strictly mask for two weeks following that self-isolation period.
32I would definitely isolate, it's still dangerous. My friends mom died about 2 weeks ago from Covid. It's not super difficult, you can order your shopping in and Amazon brings everything else.
23People forget that some can not get vaccinated even if they want to, like myself. But I also do my best to avoid people in general so... But do what you can to avoid the public as much as possible when you are sick, regardless of COVID or just a cold.
19And those of us who are high risk are likely to be hospitalized even if we are vaccinated. Please don't send me to the hospital.
16
If I think I’m sick, regardless of what I’m sick with, I try to isolate and mask as much as possible. Nobody wants to get sick from me. For the flu and Covid, I go and get tests to allow me to take the antiviral medications. If I have Covid, I mask for a couple of weeks just to prevent spreading it.
17Why would it be any different than before? Some of the answers here range from depressing to terrifying.
I know people whose health and lives are being threatened by Covid, directly and indirectly, as we speak. Infectious disease continues to be infectious. Do what we all learned to do.
Seriously.
16Many people seem to be treating it differently now because the average person who catches it has milder symptoms than a couple years ago. The potential for long-term consequences seems to be left out of the conversation.
5It's not even long-term consequences. Immunodepressed people still exist.
But yeah, long term consequences, too.
People shouldn't be thinking if they can start treating Covid like a cold or a flu ,they should be thinking about using what they learned from Covid when they get a cold or a flu instead.
8
Still the same disease it always was
13Is it though? I was under the impression that, while still not harmless, the mutations we have been dealing with for the last couple of months lead to generally milder symptoms and do not put a comparable strain on health care etc. I do understand that this doesn't fix anything for especially endangered people.
3It can and still does kill people. We are no longer having a 9/11 every day. Now we just have one every two weeks.
Also, long COVID has no cure and no guarantee of ever being cured. Stay home.
18Is this actually true though?
There's a lot of talk about how mutations are usually less lethal, which might be true in a theoretical sense, but is not necessarily true of actual covid infections.
Even if it is true, the important question would be, how much less lethal they are, which is probably unknowable.
1As most viral illnesses, yes it has generally gotten slightly less lethal. It's not super clear whether this is mostly due to existing resistances built up from past infections/vaccines or due to mutations. That said, it is definitely not a joke and still kills people in vulnerable groups every day, in addition to likely being the cause of permanent organ damage in many infection cases that don't result in death.
In fact, going back to the initial question, these changes over time could make it even more important for sick people to fully isolate, as the infectivity is higher.
1
Even if a lot of people are vaxed up, the vaccination doesn't stop the actual spread, so it's still best to stay at home. Hopefully your job is understanding, they should be, and let you stay home for like a week or two, or work from home.
13Stay home as much as possible. If you really have no choice (i.e. living alone and groceries can't be delivered), wear (properly!) an N-95 or similarly rated mask and gloves (if possible). If you can't wear gloves, bring hand sanitizer with you and sanitize your hands regularly. Avoid touching your face and sanitize your hands in between touching grocery items. You can still be contagious immediately after first testing negative, so make sure to apply the same precautions until you're sure you are in the clear.
If you are literally coughing and showing bad symptoms, try to wait it out until you're a little better before going out.
13Not meaning to nitpick, but I don't think the gloves add anything here. You're not shedding virus out of your pores, so the problem with hands is entirely from touching the eyes, mouth, and nose.
If you wear gloves and that reminds you not to touch your face, I guess that helps. Otherwise, you would need to sanitize or change your gloves regularly, and it may as well just be your hands in that situation.
5You're right, I was thinking about avoiding infection on the gloves part, not the other way around (prevent spreading). But yeah, as long as OP avoids touching his face or getting bodily fluids on his hands, sanitizing often even without gloves should help.
4
Lots of comments already telling you to stay home so I don't think I need to. What I will say is if you don't want to contribute to the growing number of variants, you'll stay home. Variants largely arise from mutations in the virus during replication. Humans are virus-replication machines. If you're infected you could be carrying a new variant right now and the only way to stop it is to let it die inside you. Your body's immune system will already be in full swing and be in the best position to deal with it as opposed to an uninfected person.
Don't contribute to the endemicity of COVID.
10Get paxlovid from a doctor. It reduces the chance of long COVID.
And have them clear you of any serious risks.
Then isolate for 5 days, or whatever the doctor tells you.
You may still have symptoms after that. Wearing a mask isn’t a terrible idea if so. No one around you wants to see you coughing after they know you just had COVID.
10I know you said your country doesn't have guidelines, but if you'd like to follow the CDC guidelines they can be found here https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/isolation.html tl;dr is yes you should isolate
9I would stay isolated until you turn up negative on a test (assuming the current tests pick up on the new strain). Realistically that takes 3 weeks.
8When my kid got the Covid-19 recently, they stayed home from school, I worked from home, the other family members just masked at work/school or work in very depopulated office so went in. None of us got sick or got anyone else sick. But now kid has to somehow make up a week of school because even though for 3 of the school days they were well enough to do the work, the school doesn't have any zoom feed or allowance for sick days.
7Schools are far too based on attendance, and often legally can only count kids with a butt in their seat at school. Even into college, progress is based more on appearance than ability.
It leads to crappy teaching, and draconian absence policies.
To be fair, forcing kids into school drastically cuts down on child abuse. So there is a logic behind it, just taken a bit too far.
4
It never went away. It's always been here. You should still be behaving the same way you were behaving 2 years ago.
6I do not behave the way I was two years ago, nor do other people, both in private and in public (Where I live, seeing someone wear a facemask has become the exception. Big concerts have been taken place for a while, etc.). Because of that (together with the subject not coming up a lot in news and conversation anymore, masks and rapid tests going on sale, ... ), I had come to the conclusion that the situation had generally relaxed. Am I wrong? At the beginning of this, I was anxious another major outbreak would be imminent, but nothing horrible seemed to happen, so I sort of lowered my guard. (Took a test when I had a sore throat or before meeting certain people, sometimes wore a mask when on particularly crowded trains, but otherwise started to live more or less like 'before'.) Is Covid still a big deal and I sort of missed it?
2Early waves had extremely high ICU/death rates because it killed off the most vulnerable.
That combined with vaccines reduced ICU/death rates, but they are still present. Infection rates have only ever been going up.
For POLITICALLY motivated reasons, not for public safety reasons, most areas have stopped collecting data, concealing infection, ICU, and death rates related the COVID, making it look like things have subsided, but we dont know, because we arent maintaining the reporting systems.
At present, I believe there are 3 new worry-some variants. They are EXTREMELY infectious, compared to earlier strains.
There is also a disturbing trend in the newer variants that they don't go straight for the respiratory system. You get infected, it incubates in some focused area of your body, you get a little sick for a day or 2, it continues to fortify its presence in the body for a week or 2, and then you get slammed with the full blown covid symptoms for a few weeks.
That means the new strains are spreading without symptoms for a MUCH greater period of time, and the Long Covid effects of those strains are more severe.
Here is a good metaphor. If Ukraine just got bored of Russia's invasion and decided that they were just going to return to their life as it was before Russia invaded, does that mean that the Russian invasion is over?
People just decided they were sick of masks and social distancing, and decided that it was over... but its not. Covid is now near endemic, and it is mutating at the alarming pace you would expect from Covid at endemic levels. Its only a matter of time until strains that REALLY go after the heart and the liver as well as the lungs surface, and when that happens, it will make Wave 1 of the pandemic look like child's play.
10
It is my very personal take on this and by no means a recommendation, but here is how I do it:
If I feel seriously sick, that means: more than a common cold, I limit my social interactions to the bare necessary minimum. I will still do my own groceries (if possible outside rush hours) but sanitise my hands thoroughly, wear a fitting ffp2-mask and generally make a conscious effort to take hygiene much more seriously
By now, anybody vulnerable has had the chance to get sufficiently vaccinated so that I don’t feel it is justified to lock myself up.
-8Even if you just have common cold you shouldn't be going out and infecting other people.
That last line is just a petty excuse for you not wanting to be a decent and responsible person.
4As I said: I limit social interaction to the most minimal. And from what I‘ve understood during the pandemic, my precautions should reduce possible infection by over 95%. And at least where I live there are no signs that Covid poses any bigger risk to public health than the common flu (where I also get my shots and behave accordingly after living through a full blown infection).
-1
I’ve had 6 covid vaccinations and I’m still not protected. It’s not a case of “having the chance to get sufficiently vaccinated” if the vaccines don’t work on your immunosuppressed body, or if you can’t have the vaccine at all.
It’s unbelievably selfish to go out when you know you have covid. How hard is it to stay home for 5 days or so when you test positive ffs?! The fact that you don’t think staying home for a few days is “justified” when you literally risk killing someone vulnerable by not isolating is frankly shameful.
3At some point we need to make a decision though, Covid is in the ecosystem now, and it's not going away, most people will have little to no symptoms worse than a cold due to natural immunity or being vaccinated. While in an ideal world people should isolate when they have something infectious, it's not always feasible.
Is it not on the immunocompromised to protect themselves rather than the rest of society having to change. Surely this has been an issue with other illnesses prior to 2020 and we didn't always expect people to isolate then when they had a cold, flu, etc.
2I am not saying I go out socialising. But having to care for a family often makes it necessary to go out and get stuff. Especially when your symptom free vaccinated kids still go to school.
Anyway do I believe I pose a significantly smaller threat than those individuals that transmit the virus despite having no symptoms at all.
So I understand your concern and I agree that it is sensible to minimise exposure and take precautions but I also believe in commensurability of measures as there will never be 100% protection of infection. And I say that having dealt with two covid infections and months of heavy post-covid symptoms.
-1
Many many vulnerable people can’t get vaccinated and even those who can aren’t immune. I know someone who died recently and had every vaccination she was offered.
No excuse to put people at risk on purpose
3I‘m not saying I go out and about coughing in peoples faces. I try to be sensible and stick to high hygiene standards as mentioned.
So if somebody is vulnerable or feels anxious about getting infected they should also take proper precautions. And by everything I’ve learned through the pandemic, the risk of transmission should be very minimal.
-2
This would have been my intuitive take as well, but I do see how it's not exactly best practice.
1