To ask if you are still avoiding covid?

I'm confused by how much cost of living plays into avoiding someone when ill instead of seeing them socially. Ditto for giving them a choice instead of dictating to them whether they should risk catching the illness?

This- covid/flu/any other random snotty virus. I try to not catch it and not pass it on if I d have it. I still perform essential tasks but don’t test

"Fret about Covid"

If you were a carer for an adult child with multiple health conditions or lived with an older person with, for example, a history of strokes, then you might "fret about Covid" too.

I hope you are aware that catching Covid increases your risk of strokes, clots in the lungs, cardiac issues, cognitive impairment, vascular issues and the potential for developing Long Covid and Parkinson's disease - which may force you to give up work, or render you unable to care for yourself or your family. Your children, if you have them, may be too ill to return to school if they develop Long Covid.

If you are on Twitter/X you would know that far from a "little pocket of people" who strive to avoid catching or passing on Covid, there are a great number of people who continue to actively avoid exposure to Covid.

Ask yourself why A & E is still overwhelmed. Why GP surgeries are reporting sustained levels of absences amongst clinical and admin staff. Why elective surgeries are being cancelled due to staff ill health.

You sound very ill informed.

@Growlybear83 but that's simply not an option for a lot of people these days, especially with the cost of living

I know two people whose lives have been severely impacted by Long COVID so I still avoid it when possible.

If I believed that I had any contagious illness then of course I would avoid other people or wear a mask. If I have something very mild like a light cold and I'm due to visit a friend or someone is due to come to my house, then I warn them beforehand and give them the option of changing our plans.

"Not a big deal" when seven million people have died from it? That's taking callousness to a new level.

Of course not! I never have. It's not a big deal, it's never been a big deal. And I wouldn't test, so if I had some sort of cold/flu type thing, I'd have no idea whether it was Covid or not.
Just get on with your life, OP, and don't stress about trivia.

I have never taken a covid test except for going on holiday when that was required for travel.

I haven't had symptoms or signs of covid/flu/cold since about 2018 when I was bed bound with flu. I'll act accordingly if I get poorly and I still won't test for covid because, well, why would I?

I won't be doing anything to 'avoid' getting any similar ailment.

I do understand why a lot of people don't test for all the reasons stated above, but having caught Covid for the first time in September 22, I was horrifically poorly and only just over the threshold for hospitalisation. I now have fibromyalgia, areas of inflammatory arthritis and previous active inflammation has eaten a lot of my knee joints away. My life has changed immeasurably. I am on medication that lowers my immune system so I just want to know if anyone is poorly so I can avoid the contact. I know it is impossible to avoid altogether.

We should all be doing this! It's common sense... I really don't understand why anyone would not actively avoid getting sick and/or spreading any virus!

If I knew I had it (and I wouldn’t test, so I doubt I’d know), I’d probably steer clear of anyone who I knew to very very elderly or vulnerable. That said, I’d do that if I had a bad cold, so no real difference, and no, I don’t avoid it any more than I do anything else.

I avoid sick people (well all people really!) No one I know is still testing so I don't know if they have Covid but if friends and family tell me they are ill I wish them well virtually and then stay away until they are no longer gross. I don't need your germs!

I believe that is the guidance, yes. I need to check.

I sympathise - I was hospitalised with glandular fever many years ago and was very ill for a long time. Post viral fatigue/syndrome is not a new invention, despite it being repackaged as 'long covid'; I caught a viral infection and was unlucky to have been one of a minority that reacted badly to it.

I've had covid four or five times that I know of (the first time was in early March 2020 like a PP, so no testing) and had no problems at all bar feeling rough and having a couple of days in bed on one occasion (on two occasions I would never have known without doing a test), but if I had been more seriously affected I would accept it as one of those things. We can't eliminate all illnesses, and nor can we predict what will happen when we get them.

No I have not been worried about covid for years. I practise good hygiene in general , to minimise the risks of picking up any bug. If I feel ill with a cold now I wouldnt test , but I would just avoid seeing any elderly family which I would have done pre covid anyway.

@Growlybear83 but so can so many other illnesses. If you go out and about while feeling even slightly under the weather you could, theoretically, kill somebody

Because people are still dying from it or becoming extremely ill. Just because you haven't been badly affected doesn't mean that other people react the same. I couldn't live with myself if I had COVID and knowingly mixed with other people without warning them and then spread it to people who may go on to die or be seriously ill. If you have COVID symptoms, it takes a few minutes to do a test, which are still readily and cheaply available. I think some people are incredibly selfish.

COVID is also different from flu insofar as flu tests aren't available easily, and if you've got proper flu then you can't go out and spread it because you're too ill, unlike COVID where you might have mild symptoms but can still make someone else extremely unwell.

If you had Covid but felt well enough to work, would you have to go in?

I completely ignore it and cannot understand why anyone bothers testing any more.

Yes and no, I'm not avoiding doing anything in case I catch covid, but I had covid last year and was really quite ill, and my mother had it recently and was also ill and took a few weeks to get back to normal.
So it's not something I want to catch again if I can help it and I wouldn't want to pass it on to anyone else - the same as not wanting to pass on a cold or flu.
I think it's common courtesy to not pass on your germs if you can

@LoobyDoop2 the thing is for a lot of people it being a cold v Covid does matter.

My work don't offer enhanced sick pay. It's statutory sick pay after 3 days. So I have to choose, every time I'm ill - "is this worth £80 to me". Which means that more often than not, I'm unfortunately at work with a cold. I'm not allowed to WFH - despite the rest of my department being WFH. I have a different job title and therefore WFH isn't offered. Some of us aren't cold, callous people, but people just trying to survive as well.

@usernother But it DOES still kill a number of people. If you've never had COVID then you're really fortunate and you've clearly got a very much stronger immune system than many people. I've had it twice and both times I really was extremely ill, as was my husband recently, despite being fully vaccinated. For many people it is so much worse than 'just a cold' or flu.

We obeyed all the restrictions during the pandemic because it was the right thing to do and because both of our mothers were in their nineties and in care homes for most of this time; my husband is also very vulnerable. But thst didn't stop us 'living our lives', despite the fact that COVID really could have killed one of us or one of our mothers. But we took sensible precautions with what we did and still do now, although not as strictly now that our mothers have both died, but we still have a responsibility to the rest of the community to try to avoid spreading COVID to people who may have vulnerabilities thst we don't know about or who have vulnerable family members.

No. Even if I wanted to - I don't have the luxury of it, and a large part of my job involves mealtime assessments where I'm watching people cough from close up (I assess swallowing as part of my job), so, in combination with school-aged kids in the house - if it's coming my way, it's coming my way. Thankfully in general I have a good immune system, although it's guaranteed that I'll always get one shitty bug a year that establishes squatting rights in my sinuses and makes me miserable - and that one's holed up there at present resisting eviction attempts - and the others I'll shift pretty quick.

What I do do, is if I'm unwell I'll cancel my patient visits (or offer them the option of this) and reschedule them and switch to WFH so I don't unnecessarily share the germy love. I would test when we had access to free tests, but I'm not going to be paying out for snot sticks out of pocket now we're expected to pay - sorry so I just adopt the general policy of if I feel shite don't spread it around... 2019 style essentially.

I think for most of us that is what "living with covid" actually boils down to - unlike on here where people seem to claim in faux-horrified tones that we're all running around licking and actively snotting on people in some kind of germ infested orgy.

This. There is almost nobody I want to see so much that I’m happy to accept a week of feeling shit afterwards, so if I know they’re ill I’ll avoid them. And I’m not a hypocrite so if I’m ill I keep myself to myself. Whether it’s covid or a nasty cold is neither here nor there.