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.

Well, that is incorrect. They do.

I'm going to Asia shortly and if I need to self isolate afterwards, I'll be staying in house & garden but not in one single room (no en suite) kids will still go to school and DH to work. So all pretty pointless really.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-self-isolation-for-patients-undergoing-testing/advice-sheet-home-isolation/

The advice is all there Not very practical if you have small children.so the advice for sick people to wear a surgical mask is useless since most people don't have them. You would need quite a few since they need changing often

In most countries, if you are self-isolating to protect others, then you cannot leave your own house,
regardless of bored dogs, kids etc

They can't trust each individual not to touch things or talk to other nocturnal wanderers,
hence the total ban on going out

Some have criminal penalties for breaking this,
such as swingeing fines or even imprisonment if you have been ordered to self-isolate but are caught outside

If a whole town is quarantined, then you can go out - sometimes only at certain hours - so long as you stay within the town

Where I live it’s called home isolation and it only applies to known or suspected cases of infection. All people in the household must stay home.

I think you’re thinking of quarantine, Nichy, which is for people without symptoms.

I’d have thought it meant ‘household’. How do you isolate yourself in one room if you’re a single parent with young children? Surely if one member of the house has caught COVID it can be assumed everyone has been infected and self isolating inone room is pointless.

imo, self-isolation from other people within a household is not feasible except for those who live in a mansion

What is more practical is to isolate their whole household from the outside world

Totally agree re tautology OP! It's been bugging me for ages!

@NichyNoo
You don’t need to have an en suite. The advice is to have a rota to use the bathroom and you need to clean it after using it, make sure you don’t have any shared towels etc.

@NichyNoo isn’t government advice for them to stay home too?

If one family member has to isolate to protect others - not themselves - then I'd have thought the entire family must stay home too

I hadn’t thought of it as a tautology. I think it’s self isolation as opposed to enforced isolation or hospital isolation.

@NichyNoo your kids and dh would have to stay home too.
Otherwise they would compromise the health of every child in their school, all of their family members, every teacher/dinner lady/receptionist etc and their family members, anyone they encountered on the way to or from school. But to mention the thousands of commuters/employees/clients and all of their families your dh could share space with in one day at work.

This is hugely short sighted of you.

If it’s a household though it could be several weeks before it’s all cleared through if there is a few of you so I would probably get that bog roll in

Is anyone policing it? Because I'm seeing a massive flaw in the advice here.....

I think self-isolation makes sense. It’s when they’ve said on the news that people should “self-isolate themselves” that I get irritated. I mean, it’s not like you can self-isolate someone else

What about people who were on the flight with me? If I get a cough two weeks after coming home, will the airline trace everyone who was on the flight with me? You see the flaws....?????

It doesn't mean staying in one room. It means don't go out and cross infect others. If it's you and the family then you just need to accept you will spread it amongst you in your house.

If you are in say a family of 4 and you are all infecting each other and there is a bit of a lag between people and it lasts about 3-4 weeks that could be a couple of months isolation

It doesn't mean staying in one room.
It does mean staying in one room sometimes. i.e. parent returned from high risk area would need to isolate in single room but spouse and kids could go about usual business.

This relies on you knowing in advance you're returning from a high risk area though.

A single room - for two whole weeks? I think people are getting carried away with the hysteria and forgetting that only a tiny, minuscule proportion of the population are conscientious enough to actually put up with that level of isolation. Unless 100% of people with symptoms do this, then it's pointless.

And please don't send me hate - I'm just being devil's advocate here & alerting you the fact that the guidance is pretty ineffective & pointless.

Thanks for the link @bumblingbovine49 .

It's definitely open to self---- interpretation if you don't read the information links.

I feel for people with preschoolers particularly!

It doesn't mean staying in one room.
It does.

Who’s going to be checking all this anyway, even if the army was brought in they couldn’t check every household in case they slipped out to the shops

That's what leaps out at me as the obvious flaws NichyNoo. But presumably it's an attempt to contain the spread as far as possible?