Aibu ti be slightly annoyed with DH for taking a Covid test

[Raspberrysins]

… and now we find out we are both positive. I’ve been ill with cold and cough symptoms for a week. I had one day off work then spent the whole weekend with family for my mum’s 80th. We went to abba voyage. I have been in the classroom. I have been out for dinner with colleagues last night. Until now, it was just a cold virus. But NOW I feel duty bound to tell people? I kind of prefer the living in ignorance thing! Should I announce it or not? I will def tell my mum. Not sure how I feel about Covid now that all the rules have ended. I kind of feel annoyed that he did the test at all!

And you don't think it might be considerate to minimise the risk of people dying?

Never said I didn't minimise the risk. Testing is neither here nor there though.

Exactly this. Whatever the official “rules” are or aren’t - if you’re sick with ANYTHING you shouldn’t just go coughing sneezing all over your elderly relatives. Makes no difference if it’s Covid or a bad flu. You should keep your illness to yourself however best you can.

I work in public health/immunisations and the eligibility criteria for covid vaccination has been massively reduced this year. The JVC recommendation was that even front line health staff don’t need vaccinated this year and are moving towards upping the age eligibility from 65 to 75. (Although the NHS opted to offer the vaccine but more as a PR exercise rather than a scientific approach). Unpaid carers/relatives who live with or support vulnerable people are not eligible for the vaccine now. All this shows that Covid is not the danger it once was.

We really do need to think of it the same way we would any other virus - keep away from others until you are free from symptoms. There is no evidence based requirement for testing anymore.

Any other “moral” argument for testing is rather pointless.

https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1728#:~:text=Unlike%20last%20year%2C%20the%20JCVI,contacts%20of%20people%20with%20immunosuppression.

edited to add link to BMJ article

I don't see the point in testing anymore. People have either had the vaccine or they haven't, we've all decided how we are going to live with the risk of catching COVID and it's just another illness you can get now. It wouldn't stop me going about my business unless I was specifically seeing someone immunocompromised. But that would be true for any illness, not especially COVID.

Taking a Covid test when you feel ill is now the responsible and sensible thing to do, you could kill a vulnerable person by spreading it around.

This.

Lots of people are still testing because lots of people have vulnerable family members or underlying conditions. Your husband was sensible whilst you mixing with an elderly parent wasn't. Be annoyed at yourself.

Oh come on - we never came close to compulsory vaccines

Please don't misrepresent the article and the reasons for the change of approach. The nonoffering of the covid jab is because of pre existing immunity!!

In 2024, the current situation is one of very high levels of population immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the emergence of new omicron subvariants that are not associated with increased disease severity compared with earlier variants.”

Op people were brainwashed and frightened by this illness that can have zero symptoms but you still need to test, brainwashed to have a load of jabs. A family member of mine had a jab and had to go to hospital with raised blood pressure and nose bleeds, then was really ill afterwards. Ive Never had a jab and never had more than a common cold since it all started. I know many people who took days off work because they tested positive although they were completely fine or had a sniffle. People vunerable to covid will be just as vunerable to a cold or flu virus.

As a public health specialist I know this. I’m just making the point that said immunity means that vaccination for the majority is no longer required and that Covid is no longer the problem it was in the past. Arguably this can be interpreted as saying we need to treat it like any other viral infection now and testing is no longer required in the normal day to day machinations of life.

Thanks for making me feel as if I’m not the only one with these views. Clearly the minority though!

Whether it's covid or not is largely irrelevant.

No one wants a nasty bug over Christmas, or any other time of the year really.

I'm self employed, so if someone chose to socialise with me knowing they have something contagious it's likely to coat me hundreds, maybe even thousands of pounds to cancel days of work. I work closely with people from all walks of life, including carers, the immuno-compromised, the self employed etc. Plenty of whom would be negatively impacted by my decision to share a space with them when I know I'm ill.

I'm very grateful when a friend or a client is honest and says they have to reschedule due to illness. I would much rather see them in a week or so than have to cancel days of my own work/plans.

Long before covid-19 was around we took sensible precautions around socialising when sick, whether or not it's covid is a red herring in this instance. You were sick with something contagious. That should have been enough for you to consider other people and modify your plans.

This. I know enough people with long covid to understand this is not something I want to take lightly. I was so ill I wanted to die so at least it would stop.

That said, I wouldn't mix with people if I had a cold either. It needs to be normalised to stay away from other people when you're ill.

And yet another 'health specialist' ignoring data on covid, long covid and associated organ damage.

Utter rubbish

Either way, you've been out mixing with others knowing you're not feeling well and were likely to spread it to others, so I'd say it's only fair to let them know so they can prepare in terms of medicines/whether they want to cancel plans with others if they start feeling iffy.

I know we have to live with covid, but I'd rather know if I was likely to get it, so my Mum could prepare food wise in case we can't get together. I can't function if I have covid and we think my Mum has only had it once and she looked and felt really ill.

There’s a 10% chance of getting long Covid every time we get Covid. People have had to give up their jobs and are house bound. I do wish people would understand that this can be a really awful virus and can cause a lot of damage.

Healthy and fit people are affected and it can happen even after a mild case. I do think Covid is different to your bog standard cold. It has quite a vascular element.

Care to share your evidence based sources? What you’ve said doesn’t even make sense - one cannot be a “specialist” if one doesn’t use peer reviewed, evidence based data - it’s the cornerstone of specialist practice in any field of medicine.

I think it is easy to forget how many more 10s of 1000s of people may have died without vaccination.

If you give any medication to billions of people, some will unfortunately have serious side effects - as a student, I saw a man in his 40s given cocodamol for pain following a routine eye op. He went into renal failure and died. A medication given to millions of people every year.
It’s the nature of the beast.

Someone has to be the 1 in a million who dies as a result of the medication/medical intervention. But we need to remember that if we hadn’t had a vaccine programme, many, many more would have died. Unless of course you believe the world is flat…..

Unfortunately you haven't even been able to understand my comment.
I'm not arguing against vaccines.
I am arguing against your view that covid isn't serious.
There's plenty of global, peer reviewed studies showing the harm covid causes in the form of long covid, organ damage, blood clots, diabetes and yes, still killing people.
The fact our gov has chosen not to provide vaccines to the wider population (unlike other countries) is based on nothing more than cost, which will be a false economy as our economy suffers with increasing sickness, both long and short term.

I'm not convinced of that. There was a lot of talking about it, and hinting at it, as became the government's standard procedure to test public reaction to a possible strategy: leak to the press what might happen, and observe the public reaction.
"Masks might become compulsory in shops."
"There might be Locktober."
"Vaccine passports might happen." (Soon after "they will never happen".)
They might not have stated it publicly, but I think the infrastructure was there, the idea was oven-baked and warm, and ready to be pulled out like a rabbit out of a hat, once the public had been nudged enough to accept the idea. I think we did come dangerously close to it. Initially, lots of people (and politicians) thought that we could never lock down, then Italy did it, and our politicians said "so can we". So when Austria brought in their compulsory vaccines, our politicians might easily have said "if Austria can do it, so can we".

We're encouraged to test at my workplace and told to stay away from the office if we're feeling ill.

I've just had a colleague in hospital with Covid. It was awful. She's young with small children so it's still making some people seriously ill.

I still test if I feel ill as I don't want to spread it to anyone. You just don't know who will sail through covid and who won't.

We will need to agree to disagree.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01136-X/fulltext

https://whn.global/scientific/spectrum-of-covid-19-from-asymptomatic-organ-damage-to-long-covid-syndrome/