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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Will you self isolate if covid positive test?

953 replies

Monopolyiscrap · 12/02/2022 00:47

Compulsory self-isolation is ending if you test positive with covid. Instead, people are being advised to choose to self-isolate.
In reality, I think many people will not. I would not get paid if I self-isolate but am well enough to work, so why would I forego a week's wages?

So will you self-isolate if you test positive with covid?

YABU - Yes I will self-isolate
YANBU - No I will not self-isolate

OP posts:
bumblingbovine49 · 12/02/2022 08:30

I am currently ill with covid and have signed up to the panoramic trial that is testing an antiviral treatment for use at home for mild to moderate covid symptoms to see if it works to reduce the likelihood of becoming more ill and of developing long covid

To qualify for the trial you need to be over 50 (or under 50 with an underlying condition) and have had a positive covid test within the last 5 days . This thread looks like the trial is buggered now as of next month as if non-one knows they have covid they won't get enough participants

I will continue to test if I have symptoms and yes I would pay for a test if necessary though probably only for the next few months to a year.

Toanewstart23 · 12/02/2022 08:32

@Iggly

Last week your posted

I would test if I needed to,
For example before seeing someone vulnerable or I was unwell. Or I’d just been somewhere high risk. Same for the kids. That for me is what living with covid is - just being mindful!

Given for many covid displays no symptoms whatsoever, you could well have covid in future and be out and about without knowing it
How do you square that with your vehemence on this thread?

Waxonwaxoff0 · 12/02/2022 08:32

@Iggly

Yeah, yeah. Selfish to want to be able to actually pay my mortgage and rising bills

The problem is that we accept having shitty employee terms and conditions and an economy which favours the top 1%. And we accept it.

Well I agree with that. But as a minimum wage employee who needs my job to survive I can't really complain and risk getting the sack.
bumblingbovine49 · 12/02/2022 08:33

oh and if I test positive I will definitely self isolate though probably for 7 days or so - not 10 unless I am still ill

Toanewstart23 · 12/02/2022 08:33

@Darbs76

In my team I will be advising all my staff (who return in 1 months time) that if they have a cough or a cold please work at home that week and make your 40% Office time up another time. They have been working at home for 2yrs so understandably will be worried if they are sitting next to someone who is coughing. Fortunately for us we have the ability to work at home
Make the 40% up on top of normal hours?
Grantingmum · 12/02/2022 08:35

Like for other colds or flus, I won't be testing. So I might have it, I might not. I might pass it on, or I might pass on another illness. If I'm not feeling unwell, I'll carry on with life as usual.

MargosKaftan · 12/02/2022 08:35

Like most who don't work from home, it will depend on my company's policy. If I'm allowed paid sick leave even though I'm not actually sick- then i will isolate. If I'm expected into work, positive or not, as long as I'm well enough to work, then yes, I'll go in.

Am slightly stocking up on LFT kits as I expect to have to start paying for them and want to be able to test before seeing elderly relatives.

peboh · 12/02/2022 08:36

I won't be testing, so I'll behave how I would with any other illness. If I'm unwell and feeling badly, I'll stay at home as I always have done. If dd has a fever, or is feeling badly in herself, I'll keep her out of nursery. If dh is unwell and badly, then he'll stay off work.
At this point we need to use our common sense, as we always have done in the past. We don't need to government to tell us we have to stay at home if we're unwell.

LyricalBlowToTheJaw · 12/02/2022 08:37

@BogRollBOGOF

If I'm ill enough to know I've got it, I'll stay at home and drop superflouous activities as I do with any illness.

But given that when I had it at Christmas, it felt like the worse end of hayfever and I'm now entering my 6 month season of regular sinus headaches and dry throats it's going to be pretty hard to notice. I'm not going to regularly retch to find out, and I certainly won't pay for the discomfort.

If I'm selfish, so be it. I've jumped through the hoops required, had the jabs, spent 6 months having minimal interractions beyond my household because my life and my children's education were frozen and everyone was too terrified to meet, and repeat the following winter. I had countless panic attacks/ sensory overwhelms in public attempting to comply with face coverings before giving it up. I spent 15 months living in DH's office with no escape (the noise carries through the house). It's been the perfect storm for creating a selfish person and clearly society doesn't give a shit about the toll on me, and my benefit from the sacrifices has been very low. So it is me and my happiness first, because I've spent 2 years learning that no one else will do it in return for me. I've been called selfish for 2 years for having the audacity to care about the consequences of restrictions. Here is the monster that you created. You call me selfish, you get selfish.

I spend little time in vulnerable situations and I'm not voluntarily making further sacrifices because I might spend 10 seconds walking past a vulnerable person in Tesco.

None of us is guarenteed good health and having suddenly lost relatives in their 40s & 50s, I'm not wasting any more of my good times.

'Selfish' has been so grossly overused that it's essentially meaningless at this point.
I21018 · 12/02/2022 08:40

This isn’t like the flu because it’s vaccines that have made covid relatively mild for most of us

Really? I think even prior to vaccines, Covid wasn't a serious illness for most people. This makes it sound like if we didn't have vaccines the majority of people who got Covid would have been seriously ill which isn't true.

AnEpisodeOfEastenders · 12/02/2022 08:40

Caught covid while skiing recently as did rest of our group. We didn’t isolate and travelled back via bus / plane after finishing the rest of our holiday. We caught it from people who weren’t isolating and weren’t required to test negative to fly home so didn’t see the point.

Aishah231 · 12/02/2022 08:40

I don't think anyone can be blamed for going into work covid positive (or with another flu type virus) if they won't be paid if they stay off. The government needs to mandate proper sick pay if it wants people to stay at home. Clearly it doesn't so the individuals can't be blamed - they've got bills to pay and I'm sure would happily stay at home on sick pay if that was an option. Those who judge are clearly in a position to not have to worry if they take a day or two off work. That's not true for many.

Toanewstart23 · 12/02/2022 08:42

* Selfish' has been so grossly overused that it's essentially meaningless at this point.*

And the irony is
For the last two years, it’s probably been the least selfish that society has ever been

And now…. The majority, me included, want to be “selfish” for ourselves, our children, our hobbies, socialising, holidays.

Hasselhoffsheadband · 12/02/2022 08:46

I think if they are going to stop isolation they should stop testing as well. Its not fair to put it onto people if they know from a test they have got covid, making them decide whether to isolate.

I had covid a couple of weeks ago so am hoping it won't be an issue for me for a while.

Tippexy · 12/02/2022 08:46

@GrandTheftWalrus

I had covid a few weeks ago and didn't isolate as my dd needed picked up from school. My dh had a positive lft and didn't isolate and went to work, he works alone and doesn't use public transport to get there. He sanitised all surfaces and everything he used before he left.
Wow.

My extremely vulnerable relatives thank you.

stayingaliveisawayoflife · 12/02/2022 08:47

I am now on day 8 and am only today feeling human again. My husband who I shared it with is two days behind me and still in bed.

I have a very faint positive today and am hoping tomorrow will be completely negative as will Mondays so I can enjoy the rest of the half term. I won't be visiting my mum or MIL neither of whom have had Covid yet.

I am a CV teacher so if asked I will continue to test. I hopefully will be immune for a while.

lljkk · 12/02/2022 08:50

I won't test.

Sharrowgirl · 12/02/2022 08:51

we just need to change our mindsets.

Totally agree with you but I think that’s hard to do when we’ve spent two years having every aspect of our lives governed by not catching/spreading this thing. It will take time for many people.

Cailin66 · 12/02/2022 08:51

I will treat it the same as any other illness. We had one child sick with it in December and all had to stay at home which was ridiculous. It was like a cold/flu, with about 24 hours being bad.

Not doing that stay at home ever again. We won’t even test either. But the sick child or me would stay at home 24 to 48 hours. We need to learn to live with it.

LyricalBlowToTheJaw · 12/02/2022 08:54

@Sharrowgirl

we just need to change our mindsets.

Totally agree with you but I think that’s hard to do when we’ve spent two years having every aspect of our lives governed by not catching/spreading this thing. It will take time for many people.

I agree. There's that mentality, and also the one that restrictions are the moral option. Those are both going to take some time to be eroded.
Fizbosshoes · 12/02/2022 08:56

It's been said time and again but lots of people don't seem to understand. Lots of people wont (and have not been) isolating because they can't afford to (and with the price if just about everything, increasing this will only get worse)

It's all very well to call people "selfish" "uncaring" "entitled" etc, the reality is, for a lot of people they can't afford 10 days without pay, or on SSP. Most people would be selfish if the alternative was not being able to pay bills, put the heating on or feed their children.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 12/02/2022 08:57

@User0458832

Most people won't know they have it when they start charging for tests, there will be a few that have stockpiled that will carry on but that's about it.
This. I'm not paying for tests. If I'm ill I'll take precautions but I won't know otherwise. I cough and have a blocked nose all year round so I'll make a decision depending on if it gets worse.
Lovemusic33 · 12/02/2022 08:57

I won’t be testing.

If I’m unwell I will stay at home, if I’m not unwell I will continue as normal. Basic common sense, covid isn’t the same as it was 2 years ago, people are vaccinated, covid is less dangerous and most people have mild symptoms, it would be treated the same as any virus, if you have flu or a cold you stay home if your really unwell, you try and avoid getting too close to people, covid should be treated the same (unless it mutates again into something more deadly).

RedToothBrush · 12/02/2022 08:58

The simple truth is no one will test 7 year olds. So if its going around school, DS will get it. If he's well enough to go to school he will be going to school because he cannot afford to have any more time off unnecessarily. He has covid in December and you wouldn't even have known. Its not fair to him to keep him home for that reason.

If he is going to school, by definition i cant self isolate.

I will probably keep away from busy places and close contact situations by choice, but other things no. Not that i appear able to test positive anyway (definitely had recently, just constantly neg)

My gut feeling based is im unlikely to get covid again before the autumn anyway. By which time attitudes will have shifted firmly to a social consensus of 'get the fuck on with things' rather than a more cautious personal responsibility to isolate. Employers will just see it as piss taking too.

Advisories are, to put it bluntly, a complete waste of fucking time, because so few people take them seriously. If only a minority observe them for an infectious disease it kind of defeats the point anyway.

I can't see the point beyond the next few weeks unless we get a much more severe variant as we are no longer seeing excess deaths, generated by covid.

We are much more likely to see deaths from other illnesses which have become chronic in the absence of proper care over the last two years, and from very avoidable things like fuel and food poverty and an increase in suicide related to financial problems.

We live in the uk. Our society is less forgiving than others because of the poverty gap. My desire to educate my child sufficiently is driven by it and many health issues are driven by it.

I genuinely don't think we have the same choices available to us on either a personal or a governmental level - our starting point when the pandemic hit has meant that we have to tolerate more deaths because we were more vulnerable to begin with thanks to existing structural inequality. Add to that our nature as a travel hub and everything was already in motion in January / February 2020 and we had a much narrower path through the pandemic as a result.

I think given those parameters we've done ok. We were already fucked, so there we could not do as much to limit that fucking.

DonGray · 12/02/2022 09:01

Why would you test if you weren't ill?