To ask if you still test for Covid?

[thebestcestmoi]

This has been on my mind now that the general cough/cold season is upon us.

What do you do if you are having Covid-type symptoms eg cough and temp?

Do you own/pay for LF tests? How often and sparingly do you use them?

It just feels a bit strange this year with no clear guidance...

Yes I do and my kids do they don't want their grandparents to get it . X

No, life is back to normal now for the majority of people and covid isn’t something I give much thought to in my everyday life, no more than flu or any other illness, so I treat it the same as everything else. If I’m too unwell to go out then I stay in, if not I get on with my life. I wouldn’t visit elderly relatives if I was ill with anything anyway, and I wouldn’t expect someone who was very vulnerable to covid or particularly worried about it to be somewhere like busy restaurants or pubs.

I really don't understand why some people are so annoyed by others testing. What does it matter to you?

As far as I can tell plenty of my friends are still testing, because every so often I see someone post a positive test and say how rough they feel. I would assume that like most, they're only testing when they actually feel ill.

Honestly, getting annoyed about others testing smacks of Covid denial/anti-vax idiocy, and just comes across as a bit thick. You can't make Covid go away by not testing for it, it's part of life now. It just happens that we have home tests available for it, in a way that we've never had for, say, flu.

We test if we have no symptoms and are going to see my elderly cev mother.

If we have any type of cold symptoms we don't see her and that has been the case since before Covid.

One of my kids has had Covid twice this year. The rest of us have yet to catch it. The other one tested daily before going to school.

Husband and I didn't test but we did restrict our movements and not visit friends . Most of our friends are the same.

Well, never, because I am CEV and need to know so I can get the antivirals as quickly as possible. I also have long Covid so need to know in terms of any worsening of that particular beast of an illness 😢

It matters if thier frequent testing is causing issues for others at work, or if they expect other people test as well. Staying home when you are well or have a minor illness can't continue. Workers can't be expected to pick up the slack for others indefinitely. People cannot be expected to isolate for 10 days indefinitely.

CEV people have always existed, colds and flu are also very dangerous to some of those people, how did we manage before without testing all the time?

Well yes exactly. People can test as much as they like as long as they don’t expect me to test too and don’t complain if I’m out and about with a mild cold and haven’t tested.

Yes, we still test and we pay for tests when required. But I have a vulnerable child so I like to know what we’re up against.

Rubbish! Screening when ill is a lot different to testing on the off chance you might have Covid!

I've been CEV all my life. Colds and flu ha e never damaged me like covid has

Apart from many people are struggling to hear their homes, and therefore spending money on covid tests, which at best are unreliable just isn't an option?

Plenty of people on this thread alone have said their initial test was negative, so they redid the test a few days later. If they rely on that initial test they are going out and about.

If you are vulnerable and qualify for the anti viral treatment it's right to test. Otherwise, if poorly, regardless of what bug you have, stay home until better. The test won't help with that.

I did recently - twice - when I had a particularly horrible bug. Both negative.

Even if we feel perfectly well, we’ll be testing again soon, before going to visit relatives, one of whom is very vulnerable. Just to be on the safe side.

We've still got a couple of boxes left, would test if we had particularly distinctive symptoms, but probably not for a sniffle. Most people I know don't test at all now

No, we're not testing. Dc have had a variety of URT things this year and we've reverted to what we used to do - if you're unwell, stay home.

I think most people are the same. On the parents WhatsApp group for Dc3, one of the mothers posted last month that their dc had tested positive so 'you may want to test yours so you can keep them off if they're positive too'. Other than the well wishes for her dc, the silence from the other 50 odd parents on the group about her testing suggestion, was deafening.

I'm genuinely sorry to hear that @IWannaBeInTheRoomWhereItHappens but what do you honestly expect people to do now? Especially now we have a vaccine and milder variants.

We are in a cost of living crisis, I am not prepared to lose a week or more of my wages if I am able to work. I'm not going to test my children because they have missed enough of life and education already and I can't afford to keep the children off school if they are well. I need the money from my job for my children, so protecting faceless strangers is not a priority for me. Also the tests are expensive, a box like the ones we used to get for free would cost me an hour's wage.

I don't want companies like the one I work for to go bust because they have to continue pay out for people to isolate. There are others far worse than me financially speaking. Isolating and testing is something we can no longer afford.

Thank you.
I didn't say anything about expecting people to do anything. I was answering a question about why I personally still test. Some of my friends test before they see me out of kindness but I have no expectations that they will and I don't ask them to and I don't think anything about those who don't. I agree this is just here now and we have to get on with it. I was merely saying how it had affected me and continues to.

I think it's very hard for people with long covid, people who are CEV or people who've lost people to covid (I'm both) to hear others say it's 'over and done with now' - it just seems a callous thing to say. We don't say flu is over, or cancer is over, do we? It's just another illness and so a bit of concern for others is all I'm asking (not talking to you there but others on the thread)

@DangerNoodles

CEV people have always existed, colds and flu are also very dangerous to some of those people, how did we manage before without testing all the time?

No, really? However - Covid is novel. This means it presents an entirely unique risk to the CEV far and beyond that of colds and flu. Tests for flu would be really useful, now you mention it - not that anyone would use them. (Out of interest, in my country this recent winter, PCR tests also tested for flu strains and RCV - very handy.)

Happy to help you out there.

When I say covid is over I don’t mean the virus is over, I know it is never going away and will be circulating for many years, if not forever, now. What I mean is the main bit of the pandemic is over, it’s over in everyday life for the majority of people. I know I’ll likely get covid every year from now on, but I don’t give it much thought at all so I don’t really register anything to do with covid around me as I get on with my life. When I get cold symptoms I don’t automatically think of covid anymore, so I actually wouldn’t think to test even if I had any. I expect this is the same as what most people mean.

I test when I visit vulnerable people, when I have symptoms or if I've been in contact with someone who's had COVID.

I'm lucky that I can afford the tests and will carry on testing as long as they are available.

If I went to visit my 93 year old grandad without testing and it turned out I was asymptomatic and gave him COVID, I'd feel awful.

Just got back from town and and in the last couple of hours I'd developed an irritated throat and feel warm, so I went off to do a covid test on the quiet. Got downstairs to find DH says he's feeling really rough and he's done a test as well.

We both felt awful when we had covid, and seem to be in agreement we want to do right by others and not spread it.

@Amboseli sorry you think people going to their GP with symptoms of a UTI and getting their urine screened is irrational. Feel free to stop using all antibiotics and any other advances in medicine that may come along.

Yes, I will still be testing if I have symptoms of covid whilst there is a treatment I am entitled to and need and mini outbreaks occur.

Just as people who want to see if they have covid before visiting someone vulnerable test. If there was a test that could tell if someone had a cold or flu with no symptoms before visiting someone going through leukaemia treatment would I do it? I would be a shit human being if I didn’t want to.

I was talking about testing whilst symptomatic of symptoms resembling covid or going to see people who are vulnerable to like, you know, dying, if you have covid and are symptom free and they ask you to do so. Although know of family members who have said no to doing a test before going to see someone they could kill with covid as they believe it’s over. HTH.

@ParisHotel so if you're feeling a bit poorly, sore throat, headache etc and you test for covid and it's negative, what do you do? Still go and visit someone vulnerable?

I test when I have symptoms. Why wouldn't you?
Today my self test was positive so I went for a PCR.

"Otherwise, if poorly, regardless of what bug you have, stay home until better."

No, if I have a cold I'll go out as long as my friends are happy to take the chance. If it's Covid, then I won't go out.