Do you know what self isolate means?

[tobee]

Wasn't sure if I should put this in general chat or not. Wanted wide spread opinions rather than people on here who are likely to be more knowledgeable 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway, what is your understanding of this much bandied about term?

I've only just realised I got it completely wrong. Not currently needing to do so btw.

To me, I’d say on your own

I understand that at its most extreme, it is staying in one room for two weeks and not coming out. However, I don't think that's realistic for most people, you would need an en suite bathroom and most houses don't have those and you would still need food delivering from your family/housemates.

Less extreme is staying at home and getting deliveries from friends or supermarkets (they don't need to see you, they can just leave the stuff on the doorstep - and they don't need a signature, the gizmo often doesn't work anyway).

And the less extreme again is staying at home and maybe going out at 5am to walk the dog when nobody else is around.

If I decided to self-isolate for my protection (eg because I had asthma I would do number 3).

There’s lots of information on the web telling you what it means. If I wasn’t sure I’d look at the BBC news website to check or the NHS website.

In my case,it means that several colleagues have decided to take a ‘free holiday’ because our company has chosen not to investigate the spurious reasons they are giving for staying at home. Only they aren’t staying at home at all.

I can’t. I’m a single mum with a small son, so either we are both at work/school or we are both holed up.

If we isolate, we will be in the house or the garden and not having any visitors.

OP i'm really interested in what you thought this meant?

It means staying in the house and not going out, doesn't it? If you need food deliveries etc to get them dropped off outside the door.

cologne4711 has it right though. You'd do 1 and 2 to isolate either yourself or your family if you were infected or under quarantine. You'd do 3 to try to minimise contact to protect yourself.

It meant to be staying in one room and everyone staying away. When the possibly infect person uses the bathroom they have to clean it before leaving.

Not realistic for most kids. I wouldn't trust ds to clean the bathroom

I live with dp, if it's me or him that gets sick we can do it. The other will look after ds.

Not a chance would i force ds to stay in his room. He is autistic and it would distress him. I am resigned to the fact that if he gets it. I will.

Our self isolation will be in the house.

I mean how would single parents isolate themseleves? Chances are the child will have been exposed and cant just ho elsewhere for 2 weeks.

My parents are crap and have health issues. They couldnt take ds if I had it, incase they caught it and died. And they couldnt cope with him.

It means staying inside and not mixing with anyone else, including your family, if possible. You should stay in one room, using bathroom and, if necessary, kitchen separately. Clean up after yourself. Better if someone can bring you food and you don’t need to use kitchen.

In the case of a confirmed covid19 infection the whole family would have to isolate anyway because you would have all been exposed before the symptoms showed.

Right well everyone's much more clues up than me!

I thought it meant staying at home and getting deliveries etc but I didn't realise it meant not leaving a room. Now that I see the new idea of household isolation that's what I thought it meant.

In my defence, I'm the sort of person who, if I need to do it, I'd check on proper sites there and then, so I didn't forget stuff that was necessary.

But, the main mistake is, I thought the "self" but referred to don't go to a gp or whatever, for advice, just realise you need to do it on your own responsibility iyswim!

I did a straw poll (dh and dd) they didn't know either.

I wouldn’t have thought it meant staying in one room either

I would have thought it would be everyone stays in the house and that’s it

Also, to me self isolate as it actually means is a tautology!!

It's only staying in one room if you share a house with others.

In terms of multiple occupation it works ish...

In a family house, your all coexisting so no point, just isolate the whole family until it's gone?

This is an interesting question. I was pondering it today.
Four of us at home, dh, me and dc in early 20s. Plus a dog.
We have a 4-bed detached house, with 2 bathrooms and a downstairs loo. So, we could isolate bathroom facilities.
But, I was thinking that surely some or others of us perhaps sit outside in the garden for some fresh air (assuming we were feeling up to it)? Or anyone not actually symptomatic, could go out and walk the dog if it was to a deserted place where few people would come into close contact? Or maybe go out for a drive, of it didn't involve stopping and getting out of the car and mixing with others?

Or am I being hopelessly naive?

And re: shopping, depending on whether the rest of the world also had it or not, I would hope that friends could get some basic supplies in and leave them for us in the porch. Or home delivery, if that's not too severely impacted? Also, leaving in the porch.

Not a chance I could self isolate. We would have to "household isolate"

Self isolating would surely be impossible for the huge majority?

@CheekyMango - the advice is the same if you live with family or housemates etc. And that means one room and not sharing bathrooms or kitchens where possible.
“Although you might not be able to entirely separate yourself from family members or flatmates, the advice is to limit contact as much as possible.”

Exactly my thinking @CallmeAngelina and Crunchymum.

My ds is house sharing at university and dd is 24 and living at home. But for lots of people it would be very hard!

I was wondering what the harm would be in going for a walk in the great outdoors.

I had no clue it meant household members staying in separate rooms. I’m bagsying the double bedroom and living room the telly.

But what are you supposed to do if you have a dog? We live in a city centre flat so not even a garden for the dog to go into. We couldn’t keep him inside for 2 weeks! I was thinking we’d have to take him out at night / in the city centre and on a shared stair you can’t guarantee that you won’t come across anyone else, but I think you could stay far enough away that contamination wasnt possible. Not sure what else we could do!

I would have thought that people who don’t have gardens wouldn’t have dogs.

Sorry I’ve misread. Do you mean you already have a dog in a flat without a garden? That must be very difficult for both the dog and you.

The government of the country where I live says that going for a walk is okay, as long as you stay well away from other people. Which would be a good thing for me as I have a dog and he can´t stay inside for two weeks!