my daughter isnt reacting well to being bound to her room.
*Goes to ring social services*
Ok thanks - we sure arent going out anywhere for the next 10 days.
My wife and son are still showing negative. She has Lupus and is currently suffering a thyroid condition which puts her out of breath as a result hence we are trying hard for her to avoid it. I do though feel like its a delay of the inevitable. I'm trying to juggle a 9yo with Mum separation anxiety who is in tears because she thinks she won't wake up tomorrow.
Just when you think an isolated 2 years of watching Covid go on around you has been tough enough, it keeps on giving. Yet my issues are small compared to some.
I think realisticaly, if your household are sharing the kitchen and bathroom, there's little point trying to isolate within the house.
Unless you live in a really big house and can confine the infected to the west wing.
FIL has all the covid symptoms and tested +ve on lft 3 days ago. He hasn't been able to book a pcr test, but has ordered a home delivery.
I'm sure I keep reading on this thread that you should only use lft after your 7 days isolation period, NOT pcr (for 90 days).
What happens if the pcr test doesn't arrive due to shortages before the 7 days? Does he just forget the pcr and test on the lateral flows?
Kryton57 - it must be so hard for you and the children, especially if this situation is causing such anxiety.
I think realistically, if your household are sharing the kitchen and bathroom, there’s little point trying to isolate within the house.
I disagree. My 13 year old daughter had Covid, she self isolated in her room. Meals and drink were provided on a tray outside her door. She'd open it when we were clear and put it out when done. We washed up everything immediately.
Bathroom - after she used it she left the window wide open and we sprayed the surfaces with cleaner.
The other 3 of us didn't catch it. That was delta, but I still think it's worth trying with omicron.
No way I'd be doing that to my 14 year old daughter, not judging you at all, honestly, it's just that I'd feel terrible doing that.
All the best Kryton, that doesn't sound easy.
I don't think that's what kryton asked though. They're all positive, but possibly at different stages of infection. He's concerned about re-infecting one another as they recover. IANAD, but I'd imagine that's pretty unlikely kryton, don't even try to isolate from one another.
Thanks all.
Yes that's it Woody. And we are trying not to "let it rip" indoors because of my wife's condition.
We did isolate when my kids had it but in a shared bathroom and kitchen despite being careful, I still got it. My wife didn't despite being in a plague house for best part of 3 weeks (10d at the time for kids with rest of family having to isolate too, and I then 'caught' it 8 days in, so ended up doing 18 days isolation)
Kryton- if you all have it then I don't see any sense isolating from each other but then you say your wife and son don't have it?
if all of us in the house have COVID, there’s no need to attempt – albeit virtually impossible – singular isolation, right?
and
My wife and son are still showing negative.
My mate's daughter caught it in summer 2020, pre vaccinations and when death rates were high; he was properly worried and shut her in her room, fed her on paper plates with plastic cutlery for the duration, disinfecting bathroom to an inch of its life after she'd used it......
Then one day there's a hell of a commotion, screaming and blue murder. He rushed upstairs to find her in the bathroom, because there was a giant spider in her room. He pulled the door shut with a broom, refusing to go in for 72 hours to get the spider out to allow the virus to die off and she refused to go in until it was gone. Cut a long story short, she spent 3 days of isolation in the bathroom sleeping in the bath in a sleeping bag because he refused to let her out.
He's a great story teller, when he told us this in the pub last winter I was nearly a collateral Covid victim from laughing so much.
Sorry for the confusion. The ask is hypothetical, that if we all have it then we may as well be situation normal behind closed doors.
Currently my son & wife are exhibiting negative daily ltfs, me and my daughter are in separate rooms and becuase I'm already infected I'm doing the comforting with her.
I’m not sure I fully understand your situation. But just to say it’s not a dead-cert you will all catch it. We currently have one +ve in the house, and the other three of us still testing -ve after 7 days. That’s despite only isolating for some of that time, and not completely strictly. I hope I have not just jinxed us with that comment !
He’s a great story teller, when he told us this in the pub last winter I was nearly a collateral Covid victim from laughing so much.
He must be a really good story teller, as that sounds horrendous !
So looking the numbers for the last December on ONS. week before xmas is the last numbers at 2.2million estimated infections.
It's estimating that December started off with around to 7/800k a week getting it, week before Christmas that had risen to 2.2million, week before was 1.4million. Potentially 3.5million for the last week if the numbers continue to rise as they have with Omicron and very little restrictions(I'm guessing there, numbers aren't out yet). So that puts December at around 7-8 million people getting it. Doubling time looks to be around every 8 or 9 days, or about 1.6ish per week potentially.
Question really look at it at the minute is, are these rises going to continue into January?
Are we looking at the 4 weeks of January being, for example. 5.7mil, 9.1, 14.6, 23.4? ie around 50million people getting it? Which is basically everyone else in the UK.
Or are we very close to a complete collapse in the numbers at the minute? I'm not sure if it's even possible for everyone to get it, so there might be a limit that's less than 67million?
Dunno, just thinking out loud.
He must be a really good story teller, as that sounds horrendous !
She's 20 and caught covid on a University girls trip to Zante so I think a robust isolation policy was reasonable.
Well just me and Mrs Tuboflard in our house, she tested positive on the morning of 28 December but felt rough the day before. Absolutely certain she picked it up on Christmas Eve at a local bar restaurant (which we were both at).
I’ve pretty much locked her in our bedroom which luckily has an en suite. She's been well fed and watered and got an iPad to watch Sky, Netflix and iPlayer on so enough to pass the time along with a stack of books.
But amazingly, especially as she’ll have been peak infectiousness Christmas Day and Boxing Day and we spent both days in close company, I’m still testing negative. It definitely helps being able to stay apart in the house though, helps to have a spare bathroom and bedroom.
Question really look at it at the minute is, are these rises going to continue into January?
We've been told that the peak will be mid-January. I guess that means that it could still be rising, but maybe not so quickly? On the other hand, by the end of the month everyone in the UK could have had it - save for a few isolated pockets and those who somehow seem to be naturally immune.
It might be that this turns out to be a wizard wheeze. If everyone is infected with a fairly benign strain like Omicron and that confers some sort of resistance/immunity to a few future strains, it might not have been such a bad idea to let it rip.
OTOH, we don't know what problems this is saving up The hospitalization rate could still be unsustainable and if we're all isolating, who is keeping the lights on and supplying food for us?
If the official numbers don't include reinfection, surely the daily cou ts are meaningless?
It might be that this turns out to be a wizard wheeze. If everyone is infected with a fairly benign strain like Omicron and that confers some sort of resistance/immunity to a few future strains, it might not have been such a bad idea to let it rip.
That's certainly how Boris will spin it given half a chance, but hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing. There are masssive, galaxy sized gaps in the logic of that kind of thinking though.
If the official numbers don’t include reinfection, surely the daily cou ts are meaningless?
It's a factor to consider for sure, but I'm not sure there's any practical way to accuratly differentiate reinfection Vs fresh infection.
Especially as now there's a shortage of tests in the UK - less tests means less positive results means THEPANDEMICISOVERANDITWASALLAHOAX.
So the papers are reporting the government has:
Issues guidance to all English schools that all teachers and students must wear a mask 100% of the time. Not in law, so the schools will have to police it.
Telling companies to potentially have 25% of their work force off in the very near future.
I'm expecting another run on goods in the shops and fuel again. Hopefully I'm massively pessimistic, as usual!
Not teachers. students yes, says BBC.
As a teacher my thoughts are this announcement is a tokenism. It will effect learning, yet have no effect on transmission due to the physical nature of the classroom and school environment. Plus transmission strength of strain.
We have CO2 monitors than usually go above 2000ppm with all windows open and students wearing coats. DFE says take action above 1500. This action is to record it on a sheet, keep calm and carry on. Masks will not alter this, students will still keep breathing and mixing. A mask gets to be very damp after 5 hours+ in school life for both student and teacher, also used on multiple days for most.
Schools must continue as normal with better ventilation, but of course that costs. Wearing a coat and a mask makes Johnnie a detached student, however you shake it. Which brings it's own baggage and trouble for all parties at the chalk face.
Playing devils advocate, I’ve socialised to the max and not caught it – big night out in Notts a week or two before Xmas. Maybe my natural immunity has helped, seeing as I haven’t had a single dose – did have covid last Christmas, which was not even as bad as a cold...
This was not given the sort of short shrift one would have expected of it this time last year. I think we are all tired of it.
You're not playing Devils Advocate you are just playing. You have decided that you will do you, and if that means that you infecting someone without your 'natural immunity' who will subsequently die, well i guess that's just a price you are willing to pay, yes?
Co-incidentally – the unvaxxed people I know, haven’t caught it either...
Would you like to come back to us with that?
As an also, i cannot believe some of the sh!t written ^ up there - if you are about to announce a policy change that is predicated upon x - you would kind of expect that x was at least deliverable.
This has happened so many times that it appears to be not a bug but a feature.
To put it into a context that i am familiar with - when our beloved Government 'announced' that 'flu jabs would be extended to the over 50's, your GP heard that at the same time that you did. At a press conference.
Your GP put their order in for the amount of doses they would need, based on the expected uptake, about three months prior to that announcement. What are they now to do?
It is exactly in keeping with this Brexit generation that seems to think that everything is easy, and anything that can be voiced can be done.
I consider us very lucky, that all 3 of us in household started with symptons at the same time. Reuben is 11 and has loved having an excuse to stay in and play on his xbox (sorry Dad, I can't go outside its against the rules!).
We have lots of jobs still to do on our camper and lovely neighbours that have brought supplies if we were desperate (we almost ran out of tomato juice for bloody mary's!)
And due to Xmas I've only missed out on 3 days of work. Most importantly, we didn't end up giving it to my Dad on Xmas Day...
I even manaaged to stay up past midnight on New Years Eve. So glad we waited for omicron 😉
Thanks again for the knowledge on this thread, its helped keep me sane. We may not be out of the woods yet but we are getting there.
This was not given the sort of short shrift one would have expected of it this time last year. I think we are all tired of it.
Most of us have realised the best way to deal with this is to ignore him 🤷♂️
I'm not convinced the numbers will keep growing till we've all had it as suggested. A lot of people have been more cautious this Christmas due to Omicron, a lot of people have ended up isolating over Christmas, the number of people taking risks is finite, those who can are working from home. Yes, it may rise for another couple of weeks like respiratory diseases always do after Christmas, but I think it will taper off soon. Not sharply, and possibly already too late for the NHS.
Quite glad our schools in Derbyshire go back on 10th January, buys us another week.
If your kid is at a school were mixed learning has continued from September, so that kids can continue their studies if at home isolating… you’ll be thanking the head and lead staff this winter, if you haven’t already.
More good news about severity - proper papers but in pre-print so far, so not technically peer reviewed yet.
also an interesting read on whether the lockdown was correct, and what we could / should have done (and can still learn from it)
Maybe his book will be interesting, but if it is, the article doesn’t sell it to me in the slightest. He offers up very little that hasn’t been long since discredited. Pointing out that care homes were not adequately protected, and that we abandoned testing just when it would have been most useful, does not mean that a government led reducing of contacts (and funding of support needed because of that) was ever really avoidable here.
Discredited? The huge impact on the young? The complete failure to support care homes?
The only thing we seem to learn from history is that we don't learn from history.
The damage is real, for sure. And made much larger by late action. He just skips over the very real cost we would have paid if the government hadn’t restricted contacts and financially supported people effected. Perhaps the book will address that more realistically, but the article doesn’t draw me in.
That's hard @Kryton57, I hope for a speedy recovery or avoidance for you
The damage is real, for sure. And made much larger by late action. He just skips over the very real cost we would have paid if the government hadn’t restricted contacts and financially supported people effected. Perhaps the book will address that more realistically, but the article doesn’t draw me in.
Very much my view. I agree the damage to the "young and healthy" is an issue, but the article opens by criticising Goves comments at the start of the pandemic, when we didn't know. Yes, we could have learnt lessons and tweaked the second lickdown, but this smacks of book selling rather than impartial scientific memoir
my point is more that knowing what we know now, what could or should we have done differently? I agree at the time in the absence of evidence we made choices that I fully supported, but which now are questionable.
And do we repeat them, or learn from them?
I don't know the author or what book he's pushing particularly, but play the ball not the man
I don’t know the author or what book he’s pushing particularly, but play the ball not the man
I agree with your view, but it's for the (far too belated) enquiry to demonstrate the lessons we need to learn, not a scientist selling his book. I'd be just as suspicious I Whitty, Van Tam or Daren Austin OBE were demonstrating their mastery of hindsight at this point with a memoir.
That’s hard @Kryton57, I hope for a speedy recovery or avoidance for you
Thanks, she eventually wore herself and went to sleep about 11. However, we've had all the tears again this morning as I helped her get dressed etc before going for her PCR, having to convince her we are not taking her to hospital.
Tricky scenario as despite masks my wife is now locked in a metal box with her for 45 mins, I couldn't take her as I'm slightly light headed and struggling to hold my head up unsupported with muscular neck pains, a bit dodgy for driving.
@theotherjohnv that first article feels right according to my experience, I have slight cough and it feels more "irrated throat" than any of the chest infections I've had before. Other symptoms are elevated resting HR as to be expected, a runny nose a la mild cold and a continual "Sinus" headache.
On the plus side, my son has learned to use an aeropress 😀
I know the official line is to confirm LFT with PCR, but you have 2x positive LFT in a household, are prepared to self-isolate and continue testing, which is the same outcome as if you get a positive PCR result in a day or two.
Others may disagree, but putting your wife (who is currently negative but has a condition normally treated with immunosuppressing drugs) in a car with her for an extended period seems counterintuitive to me. A positive PCR contributes to the national stats, but will it change your behaviour as a household?
The huge impact on the young?
Some of that damage will be them realising that many of their elders don't care for anyone else but themselves. Oh what a whirlwind we shall reap for the one, Thatcher's legacy on steroids, HGH and EPO.
We debated this at length last night - they are both double masked, my daughter in the back seat and she is driving with the window down and is not taking immunosuppressants currently, but because we don't know the long term outcomes we thought perhaps having "Omicron" on my daughters medical records - or at least a trace back to an Omicron period of time - may help later in life if any issue arise.
This might seem weak or wrong but that was our thinking.
Nothing weak or wrong about it, and no criticism implied. It's a good point about confirming the positive for future medical record, and you are following gvt guidance.
All the countermeasures you are taking are good ones to reduce potential viral load.
Plenty of people isolating after LFT's at the moment rather going for a PCR.
We did go for a PCR, despite all 3 of us testing positive/getting symptons at the same time.
On the one hand this added to the PCR testing load unnecessarily as we knew we needed to isolate, on the other we were added to the official statistics.
A note on T&T, my wife took the time to fill in the contacts but by then we had already informed everyone. I waited for a phone call then told them that my wife had done the forms for us and they were happy enough with that. We have had no phone calls or visits, I can only imagine how busy they are.
The idea of being hassled by T&T is what is putting some people off. THey are happy to behave but don't want to be 'hassled' about it.
The idea of being hassled by T&T is what is putting some people off.
After I reported, my wife and I got 9 emails full of conflicting isolation advice. I worked through the gazillion questions as a matter of duty, but it really did feel a confused Chinese government data collection exercise designed by Patel rather than Whitty that'll bite me in the arse in the future, to which end I'm not surprised that people don't bother.
Very confused by fk telling us they can't book at our site. Our numbers are tiny the bulk being walk ins.
Almost like someone is skewing the numbers...
Kryton57 - yes, it took my wife a long time and agreed, lots of very confusing information and often out of date.
We've been here 6 days and we're still waiting for the "official Day 2 test results" that we paid £70 for, to come back. It looks like the lab only works 9 to 5 Mon to Fri... which doesn't necessary reflect how "a Global Pandemic that is bringing the world to its knees" behaves....
Never mind. We've been going out and getting on with the things we wanted to do while we're here.
@kryton Your wife is at risk If she should contract covid and is likely to receive treatment on symptom onset. A test should secure that treatment if she should go down with omicron and tested within five days. Hope you are all feeling better soon.
We isolated my eldest son in 2020 as he was recovering from a tonsillectomy at 23. He caught it.
