To think that if you have an infectious disease, you should stay home?

[Notcontent]

So apparently the need to isolate if you have COVID will end in March. To me that seems to be sending an odd message… I am all for COVID restrictions being lifted - but surely if someone knows they have a virus, they should just stay at home??

I always thought it was pretty selfish for people with the flu or a stomach virus etc to just go out and spread their virus on public transport, to colleagues at work, etc.

I thought that a positive to come out of COVID might be that people will be more mindful about not spreading illness but it seems the message being given is that it’s fine to expose others!

What has the economy done for us though? It’s been a shit show for years. Why are we such slaves to something that isn’t working for most people.

The economy is probably the wrong word.

Replace it with "society". Food on supermarket shelves. Health professionals in hospitals. Kids in schools. Trains running. Police working.

We cannot let all this grind to a halt.

I think it would be good thing if the norm were to stay home for the first 48 hours of anything that caused you to run a temperature (or until temperature has been normal unmedicated for at least 24 hours, whichever is longer). This would be good for businesses too, as it would reduce the number of people who catch it, and are distinctly under par and under performing for several days. Better to stay home, get better and reduce spread.

That only works if there is decent sick pay, or if the only moderately unwell could put some hours in WFH which of course not everyone can.

The ending of the requirement to SI will work OK over the summer, when the incidence seems to drop anyway. But they'll need to keep some form of testing regime, to cover those working with vulnerable people (care home/some NHS) and to act as a sentinel for new variants.

They're not saying this is an irreversible step this time (or have I missed something?). Because I think we'll see SI back with a bang if there is a new variant, especially if produces moderate rather than mild disease.

Believe me I wish I could stay home when I feel unwell, but on a zero hour minimum wage job with no entitlement to sick pay, it's not even remotely possible for me to. Plus if I do take time off, I'm less likely to be given more hours.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

I don’t think it’d be possible for people to self isolate every time they have any sort of cold - some people get a lot.

As for flu, IMO anyone who says they have flu and is still going about fairly normally, almost certainly just has a bad cold instead.

Anyone who’s had real flu will know that it’s not something you can treat with Lemsip and just carry on as usual!

Flu does circulate mildly among the majority though. 🤷

If you don't get sick pay, or are on a zero hours contract, what choice do people have?

Every now and again as it evolves and / or your immunity is lowered you catch a rough one.

@Seeline

The cold is a virus, and for most people, Covid now seems to appear as a cold. Did you go to work with a cold?

I honestly think people should stay off work with a cold.

The well office idea makes sense where wfh is viable.

If I called in sick to work every day for a week, I'd probably be in trouble.

Honestly, change jobs. Your employer is awful and there are loads of jobs out there at the moment.

I think the common sense approach of staying at home if you feel ill and only going out when you feel better is the way to go. Within a comprehensive system of less precarious employment and decent sick pay so people aren’t forced to leave their homes when they’re not well.

It’s time to end the constant testing & isolation for people with covid. I’ve been really annoyed by misleading headlines over the past couple of months along the lines of “Businesses struggling with staffing due to covid” when actually the businesses are struggling due to the response to covid i.e telling people who feel basically fine to isolate for a week. Which is a completely different scenario.

@hugr that just isn't a viable option for most. Office workers who work from home yes. Everyone else? No

I'm not a martyr but if I feel well enough to work, I go to work. I don't think COVID now should be any different.

If someone feels like crap and is dragging themselves out of bed to go to work then they should stay home, rest and recover. But just because I'm bunged up and sneezing doesn't mean I can't work. My kids wouldn't have been in school or nursery for the whole of October and November if I kept them off for every sniffle. The fact that they could bounce and run around, concentrate on lessons and eat all their meals told me they were well enough to go to school.

I honestly think people should stay off work with a cold

This is such a privileged view point and has no concept of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who would lose their jobs or not get paid if they stayed off for a cold.

It would be lovely if everyone could stay at home if the had a cold, get paid, be able to pay their bills, not risk their jobs, but that’s not the real world.

The sentance should read everyone should be able to stay home if they have the cold, collect their full wage and not risk unemployment.

I don’t think you could or should stop people leaving their house with a cold.

Mainly because I can recall many, many times when I’ve caught a cold but caught it so mildly so barely notice. Often our family will all come down with the same cold to varying degrees. Presumably we are all carrying the same cold and are all infectious.

At the moment my DD has a stocker of a cold - mainly sneezing and pouring nose (LFTs negative). I myself am sneezing once or twice every few hours. My LFTs also negative. I clearly have whatever she has and as I’m sneezing I could potentially infect someone else but is sneezing about ten times a day a good enough reason for me to hypothetically miss work or school? If it is I don’t honestly see how anyone would ever get anything done.

1/3 people who have the flu are asymptomatic just like Covid. Yes if you have the flu and are suffering from it you’re unlikely to be leaving your bed but people will have it asymptomatically or with very mild symptoms and it would seem odd to try and lock up those people.

I wouldn’t socialise but if I couldn’t work from home I’d have to go in…I’d still be taking my kids to school and getting my shopping. You can’t stay home for every infectious illness.

People are also forgetting that exposure to mild viruses makes our immune system stronger.

Many viruses you are incubating and spreading before symptoms emerge, this makes it nigh on impossible to stop them. If we are all regularly exposed our immune system builds up and we are typically mildly affected. Absent that regular exposure, when we do catch these things our immune system hasnt got a clue and they can be deadly.

Never being exposed to anything is like playing Russian roulette. When you do catch something you could be a goner.

Primary age is not a bad time to get exposure.

When I had staff state that they have flu, norovirus I asked them to stay home I've sent staff home. Better one person short I thought other staff agreed

@Colderthanever

I honestly think people should stay off work with a cold

This is such a privileged view point and has no concept of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who would lose their jobs or not get paid if they stayed off for a cold.

It would be lovely if everyone could stay at home if the had a cold, get paid, be able to pay their bills, not risk their jobs, but that’s not the real world.

The sentance should read everyone should be able to stay home if they have the cold, collect their full wage and not risk unemployment.

I think it's privileged to think that it's not going to significantly impact someone if you spread a cold to them. My 8 month old son was very poorly in hospital for 3.5 weeks over Christmas with a cold that my husband picked up from someone at work.

You cough and sneeze at people? Personally I have always covered my mouth or used a tissue when coughing/sneezing if you can't do that then yes you should stay home.

I thought flu, proper flu was v different to a cold. I've had plenty of proper horrible colds over the years, but think I've only had flu about 4 or 5 times over my life. I remember those times, because I could barely get out of bed and it took months to get properly right. Bar covid, think it's 5 years since my last flu. And by 'mild', don't they just mean 'not severe enough to go to hospital '?

Whereas I get kids who've been off school for 2 days, bounce back in and tell me they've been off with flu.

@hugr people can't just take time off for a cold. Do you honestly want people to lose their jobs? Or go without pay?!

If I was back at work, I would have had to take the 3.5 weeks off to look after my son unpaid.

The economy does a lot for a lot of people. Gives people jobs that enable them to pay mortgage or rent, put a roof over their head, feed their children for example!

By the way, I would agree with you if it was simple. If we all had some kind of switch on us that flicked on every time we were incubating some kind of virus, either knowingly or unknowingly, and it switched off when we were no longer infectious. But life isn’t like that.

We’ve all had colds where the cough drags on and on for weeks and weeks. Presumably we were not infectious after the first few days but of course if you go out with a hacking cough that you’ve had for 2 weeks you’ll still get glared at. Often we don’t know we have a cold (or Covid etc!) until it’s too late.