O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[ramAnag]

Ha, ha! Still no news on the takeover and, unlike me, the morning has passed. Seems even more interminable when one is restricted to a spare bedroom with no distractions as Mrs rA appears to be following your lead as regards ‘hugs’. Sensible woman!

[swaledale]

Ha sorry to hear you have caught the lurgy, but suspect it will be a common occurrence going forward. Have to say my experience was like 4 days of medium flu, but it did take a full 10 days to get a negative test after the first positive one. I was also convinced I had it 3 days before a positive test!!

Interesting that your isolating to that extent. I suspect that you would have passed it on before you knew you had it!! With me my daughter got it first and it was 4 days later when I tested positive.

Hope you recover soon and the takeover is completed today!!

[ramAnag]

Ha sorry to hear you have caught the lurgy, but suspect it will be a common occurrence going forward. Have to say my experience was like 4 days of medium flu, but it did take a full 10 days to get a negative test after the first positive one. I was also convinced I had it 3 days before a positive test!!

Interesting that your isolating to that extent. I suspect that you would have passed it on before you knew you had it!! With me my daughter got it first and it was 4 days later when I tested positive.

Hope you recover soon and the takeover is completed today!!

Thanks Swale. Yep...I don’t know whether my home isolation is doing any good. Suspect you may be right but there’s a reason which I won’t go into.
I think I had it for at least one day before the positive test too and I’m not sure I didn’t catch it from another couple who we spent time with about five days before they knew and went down with it.

[ramAnag]

Slightly alarmed at the Government’s apparent non handling of Covid at the moment.

Having recently had it my personal experience wasn’t so bad. Felt poorly for four or five days but actually took eleven days to get the first of the two required, or so I thought, negative tests.

Because I’m retired that was more of a frustration than anything else, but at the same time a friend, who is still young enough to work for a living, also went down with it - for the second time - and was told to return to work as soon as he felt well enough which they expected to be after five days...regardless of testing outcome.

I don’t understand how this is acceptable. The friend I refer to is a teacher and schools are obviously renowned hot beds of all sorts of infection. Likewise I know someone else who works for the NHS in Nottingham and has fallen victim to Covid three times in the last two years.

Surely the likelihood of Covid spreading, and becoming worse again next winter, is greater if we are encouraging (ordering even) people to return to work when they are still testing positive and therefore still infectious. I’m no expert but that just seems like common sense and as long as tests are now costing around £2 each (I had to do six altogether) then increasingly financially hard hit families are correspondingly unlikely to do the tests that this time last year were considered so *****.

I know what passes for our Government is currently concerned with nothing more than navel-gazing...but the handling of the pandemic can’t be forgotten imo.

[MadAmster]

We still have a basic 5 days isolation if you test positive. You may exit isolation once you've experienced 24 symptom free hours.

[ramAnag]

We still have a basic 5 days isolation if you test positive. You may exit isolation once you've experienced 24 symptom free hours.

But if you’re ‘symptom free’ but still testing +ive what does that actually mean? I’d suggest if you’re testing +ive you’re still a spreader.

[MadAmster]

But if you’re ‘symptom free’ but still testing +ive what does that actually mean? I’d suggest if you’re testing +ive you’re still a spreader.

I never said our lot were perfect. just better than your lot After testing + there is no requirement to retest... just need to have 24 hours symptom free.

The point being, you test positive which means you ought to isolate and you exit isolation after 5 days with 24 hours symptom free. However, a fair few folk test + but are symptomless...... I'm still not sure if that means they can exit isolation before even going into it due to the fact they have been 24 hours symptom free....

[ramAnag]

I never said our lot were perfect. just better than your lot After testing + there is no requirement to retest... just need to have 24 hours symptom free.

The point being, you test positive which means you ought to isolate and you exit isolation after 5 days with 24 hours symptom free. However, a fair few folk test + but are symptomless...... I'm still not sure if that means they can exit isolation before even going into it due to the fact they have been 24 hours symptom free....

Which is the whole point. I’m not being competitive but I do fear we...and possibly many other governments...are becoming blasé about it all and have taken our eye of the ball.
People are clearly worse off, given the cost of living crisis, and testing has become expensive. Personally I tested once a day from day 6 to day 12 with tests that we had left over from when they were free.
Imagine the cost now for a family of four...4x6x£2 = £48. People aren’t going to pay that so the once apparently crucial testing will become more and more infrequent and, unless we are careful, we run the risk of being back to square one.

[Andy_Faber]

Which is the whole point. I’m not being competitive but I do fear we...and possibly many other governments...are becoming blasé about it all and have taken our eye of the ball.
People are clearly worse off, given the cost of living crisis, and testing has become expensive. Personally I tested once a day from day 6 to day 12 with tests that we had left over from when they were free.
Imagine the cost now for a family of four...4x6x£2 = £48. People aren’t going to pay that so the once apparently crucial testing will become more and more infrequent and, unless we are careful, we run the risk of being back to square one.

I can confirm that being in the building trade provides as much protection as vaccination because I’m not aware of a single tradesman I’ve come across since mid January having had the virus. Or at least admitting to it. Likewise folk with imminent holidays or tickets to festivals…

[Geoff Parkstone]

Testing is irrelevant in the environment of a herd immunity strategy in which we now appear to be operating.

NB there is no such thing as a free test. The cost simply comes from the state purse which we all (mostly) put into via taxes and NI.

In some ways I welcome the cessation of "free testing". During the height of that era I knew people who would test every day even when no symptoms, because they could go pick kits up for no cost to themselves. Complete waste of scarce resource but I suppose "it's my right" came into play - and of course a fear factor cranked up by the mass publicity.

2.5 years ago we had no clue on a cohesive covid strategy - now we've bumped along under different strategies but I'm not convinced we've got any better idea than the initial "just live with it"