To not see BF due to his mad visit

[delurkingtoask]

My BF and I live in separate households and have been seeing each other during lockdown once or twice a week. He is WFH, so am I. He goes out when essential, rides his bike, is generally careful, has some gloves and uses hand sanitiser.

BF lives more rurally than me and has occasionally seen his friends around the village. This week one of his friends has invited him in for a cuppa and he last night told me that he had been in friend’s house yesterday. Told me he took care to be distant but he would say that to me as he knows what I would say about it.

His friend had Covid about 4–5 weeks ago. I am now off work for a week and we had planned to see each other on a couple of days but now I am feeling very uncomfortable about this.

He thinks I’m mad as his friend has had CV and therefore he thinks there is no risk. I am uncomfortable as there is a possibility of the virus still floating around in friend’s house or friend still carrying the virus.

Which one of us is being unreasonable? In the nicest possible way, I am not interested in a load of posts telling me how I am breaking the rules, I am interested in your views as to the actual risk I would be running seeing him for the next week or so. Thanks

[Madre1972]

Honestly, I think you’ve already been running the risk with seeing him. I have no idea about the contagion ability of someone 4-5 weeks on from infection but what I’ve read would suggest a low risk to me. The bacteria can live on surfaces for a few days at most from what I’ve seen (happy to be corrected) so assuming the friend is out of the contagious period then your risk is pretty much as it has always been.

[MarkBrendanawicz]

Has his friend been better now for 4-5 weeks?

Considering you are only asked to self isolate for 14 days from the onset of symptoms I would assume that his friend is likely not contagious anymore. And I don't believe the virus 'floats around people's houses' for 4-5 weeks either. It can only last of surfaces for 72hrs can't it? And even then it decreases significantly during those hours.

But if you're worried, just do a bit of research online about it. Or don't see him for another couple of weeks.

[Guavaf1sh]

If it was swab positive and four weeks ago I think it’s fine - he’d be the safest person to be around - though I’m not commenting on the other issues

[Lordamighty]

Are you particularly at risk, if not it seems like an overreaction on your part.

[TARSCOUT]

To be fair you've been mixing households all the time so does it matter. What you're saying is it's ok for him to see you but noone else?.

[delurkingtoask]

All good points, thank you. To answer your question, no I’m not particularly at risk, but I am in my early 50s and I know of a couple of women my age who have had Covid and been pretty ill, despite being very fit and healthy to start with.

[countbackfromten]

@Madre1972 it is a virus not a bacteria

[Nanny0gg]

You've been breaking the rules and taking risks all along.

Up to you if you want to take one more.

[Madre1972]

I know it’s a virus, i wrote the post pre my coffee and couldn’t edit it.

[Bluntness100]

Sure there is lab conditions where the virus has survived on surfaces for a short period, no such evidence it occurs in real life, in fact the opposite, due to the virus being so delicate when outside it’s host.

But thinking it can survive for a month or more On surfaces is beyond extreme. I think you know logically that’s just not feasible and nothing suggests it could be even remotely possible.

My concern would be not what your boyfriend did, but your extreme paranoia about the virus, taking it to a level that has not even been suggested by the most obvious of tin foil hat wearers.

[MinorArcana]

How is his friend now?

I’d be wary TBH.

But I do have one friend - a NHS worker - who tested positive for Covid19 at the beginning of April, and only just got a negative test last week. She’d been given re-tests after a few weeks. So she had enough virus in her system to be testing positive for about 6 weeks. She was never ill enough to be admitted to hospital.

No idea whether she’d have been as contagious at the end of that 6 weeks of testing positive than at the beginning.

[Idododoidadada]

I have no idea about the contagion ability of someone 4-5 weeks on from infection

I know someone in hospital who, 5 weeks on, is still testing positive. They don’t know if he is still sheding the live virus and contagious or not but he cannot be moved to a covid free ward until he gets a negative swab result.

[inwood]

You've been seeing him all the way through so why be worried about this?

[delurkingtoask]

@minorarcana this sort of scenario is my concern really. I’m not concerned about it living on the surfaces of friend’s house for six weeks, more that friend still has traces of the virus and hence can still leave it on surfaces IYSWIM.

[Bluntness100]

For goodness sake, some of the “I know someone” stuff.

There is an isolation period of 14 days for a reason for people who test positive . Because generally after ten you’re no longer contagious. 14 is the safety net.

You’re not contagious a month or six weeks after..🤣

[Michellebops]

You have both been breaking the rules anyway.

Plus if they friend has had it, surely they would have cleaned their house to remove all traces.

Perhaps stop meeting up with your partner until it's permitted to visit other houses.

[MinorArcana]

After the first positive re-test, my NHS friend wasn’t allowed back to work until she got a negative re-test.

Her hospital wasn’t willing to take chances on her no longer being contagious after 14 days when she was still testing positive.

[Marnie76]

If his friend had him in the house, there’s also the chance that he’d had others in the house, touching surfaces etc. There’s no guarantee that your BF doesn’t have it. If you really want to avoid catching it (surely we all will at some point unless they find a vaccine) you need to avoid him.

[QueSera]

You've been breaking the rules and taking risks all along.
Up to you if you want to take one more.

This.

[Sn0tnose]

I think that if the greatest scientific minds in the world haven’t fully got their heads around immunity after infection and contagion periods etc, then any answers here are only going to be a guess.

Which one of us is being unreasonable? You’ve both been picking and choosing the risks you’re willing to expose yourselves to so far, so to ask if he’s being unreasonable because he judges a particular risk to be fine would make you seem a smidge hypocritical.

[KitchenConfidential]

You’ve been taking risks and breaking the rules up until now anyway. Not sure why you suddenly feel this is going too far now.

[backseatcookers]

You’ve both been picking and choosing the risks you’re willing to expose yourselves to so far, so to ask if he’s being unreasonable because he judges a particular risk to be fine would make you seem a smidge hypocritical.

This!

[AvoidingRealHumans]

I find it odd that you're happy to do as you please and see him all through lockdown but now he's seen someone else you're up in arms about it.

It's up to you whether you see him now but I don't think you can get annoyed about it when you've both done the same.

[Bellesboo2]

Sorry, but you've been breaking the rules from the beginning. It doesnt matter how you bend them to suit your needs, rules are rules. This is the risk you face when you break them

[Idododoidadada]

You’re not contagious a month or six weeks after

That isn’t something even the experts know. And yes, I do know someone who’s been in ICU for 5 weeks -thankfully much improved and off the ventilator-but is still testing positive.

Studies indicate that COVID-19 patients are most infectious at the start of the illness, when their viral load is highest, but researchers don’t yet know whether people who shed the virus for several weeks remain contagious until the end