Confused about testing vs. self-isolating

[Redolent]

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but...

• If you have symptoms of coronavirus, you need to self-isolate for seven days (soon to be 10). If during that time you test negative for the virus, you can emerge from isolation.

• If you’ve been in close contact with a confirmed case of coronavirus, you need to self-isolate for 14 days. If in that time you test negative for the virus, you STILL need to continue self-isolating for the full period, unlike the previous example.

Isn’t there scope for misunderstanding here? I can’t quite follow the logic tbh

I believe the theory is when you've been in close contact you could be incubating the virus, so not testing positive yet. Whereas if you are showing symptoms with no known contact, you have something else. Remember all the usual colds, flu etc can still be circulating.

I'm not sure but I assume if you have symptoms and test negative then it's another virus, not COVID, so no longer need to isolate.

If you have contact with a confirmed case and test negative you still need to isolate incase you do have COVID infection but tested negative because the test won't pick up 100% of cases.

In the absence of other factors like being a close contact, if you have symptoms, which later turn out to be eg hay fever, as shown by a negative test, you are no more likely to have or be incubating Covid than anyone else and you can carry on.

If you live with someone with Covid (or potential Covid), or are a close contact, you are much more likely to have it or be incubating it than anyone else. A test might be negative because you don’t have it, or it might be negative because it’s still in the incubation period, which is believed to be up to 14 days. No way of knowing which and therefore you need to wait 14 days in isolation.

Thanks for the explanations. Makes sense.

In practice I’m seeing a lot of instances of people testing negative after eg a colleague has contracted it, and then going back to work. Maybe it needs to be clarified a bit more.

It’s quite clear what people should do even if they don’t personally understand the rationale for it (although it’s not that hard to find out). The instructions are online, available from healthcare services, on posters.... People just don’t like it, find it inconvenient, can’t afford the time off or think they’re special and therefore ignore the instructions while excusing it as “it’s too complicated/I don’t understand/it doesn’t make sense”.

Why?

There’s a 14 day incubation period.
So zero symptoms for possibly a week before you start symptoms. So effectively 14 days.

If you are symptom free after 7 days you aren’t likely to have Covid.

What about a situation where you are a close contact of someone who then tested positive, you then get symptoms, you then test negative?
Which group do you fall into - the group that can come out of self isolation or the group that can't? Logically it would be group b I guess? But I can see why people would read it and think group a (or decide there's enough flexibility that they can reasonably say they believe it's group a so they can get back to work and being paid).

• If you have symptoms of coronavirus, you need to self-isolate for seven days (soon to be 10). If during that time you test negative for the virus, you can emerge from isolation if you have no symptoms, but if symptoms are ongoing should continue to isolate

I don't agree with the pp that it is straightforward at all.

"What about a situation where you are a close contact of someone who then tested positive, you then get symptoms, you then test negative?
Which group do you fall into - the group that can come out of self isolation or the group that can't?"

The group that can't. If you are a close contact you have to do 14 days regardless because you could still become positive for covid later in that time. If you test positive in that time it is in them a minimum of 10 days from the start of symptoms.