Do I have to self-isolate after a negative coronavirus test????

[grandehorizontale]

Ahhhh - last Thursday I had a slight contact with someone who on Friday fell ill with Corona symptoms. She was tested that day and on Saturday received the positive result. I had a test yesterday and was told it was negative. I have no symptoms. My question: do I have to now self-isolate until 14 days post my contact with the infected person? The guidelines seem to suggest that I have to self-isolate if the track and trace people contact me. The track and trace system seems not to work, so they are probably not going to contact me. Any help anyone? GH

@Alex50

The Citizen has spoken to both pubs and it is understood the lads sat outside in the gardens, which are not covered by the NHS Test and Trace system.

That's good to know!

Yes you should. It can take two weeks for symptoms to show. Be on the safe side, be fair to others and quarantine.

Yeah, others will pay your rent, bring you food whilst you're sat at home (sorry, my bad, in MN land, everyone lives near multiple supermarkets that all have delivery available), do your job at work whilst you're sat at home, take your kids to school (if you're in Scotland, the schools are back), etc. all because someone handed you a Diet Coke.

For everyone saying yes she should - she was handed a can of diet coke by the person testing positive. Time spent together in close contact? Probably 30 seconds max.

Risk of passing virus on? Virtually non-existent

But the person who handed her the coke was presumably working all day with the hairdresser and could have passed it on to her / him. So i would say yes to self isolation.

Tell you what, just invite yourself to stay over at a work colleague's home. But go further, travel abroad to a country with no air bridge and then ask to just rock up and stay in. People will jump all your colleague or his/her spouse if they say no and call them hostile, unkind, etc. Nary a mention of Covid. In fact, there's a thread in active with the exact scenario.

But take a bloody Diet Coke from someone who's positive, yes, must immure yourself for a fortnight. Bollocks.

This is what the NHS says about who is a close contact and what to do.

It doesn’t sound like you.

Can’t see the picture...will try again.

People love making up their own rules. Best to check official sources rather than asking on here.

@InDeoEstMeaFiducia

Yeah, others will pay your rent, bring you food whilst you're sat at home (sorry, my bad, in MN land, everyone lives near multiple supermarkets that all have delivery available), do your job at work whilst you're sat at home, take your kids to school (if you're in Scotland, the schools are back), etc. all because someone handed you a Diet Coke.

Going to the hairdressers isn’t essential so anyone who would suffer extreme hardship through having to self isolate can choose not to go. Likewise many other non essential but potentially higher risk activities.

Dear all, the hairdresser who did my hair, who has worked with the infected person, has also tested negative - if that helps. GH

But the person who handed her the coke was presumably working all day with the hairdresser and could have passed it on to her / him. So i would say yes to self isolation.

Contacts of contacts don’t need to self isolate.

You need to go and read about this.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/when-to-self-isolate-and-what-to-do/

Going to the hairdressers isn’t essential so anyone who would suffer extreme hardship through having to self isolate can choose not to go. Likewise many other non essential but potentially higher risk activities.

If it were so high risk it wouldn't be open. For some people, looking presentable is part of their job.

At any rate, the OP doesn't have to self isolate. So by all means, crack on, OP, you're in the clear.

In the future, try to find a hairdresser who's mobile so you don't have to bother with all this ridiculousness.

@user1469544430
Thats pretty tenuous - virus transmission doesnt happen that quickly. Just because the diet coke handler might have spent all day with the hairdresser, doesnt mean that the hairdresser will (a) have caught it and (b) passed it onto a client.

And even if the virus had passed from diet coke handler to hairdresser, it wouldn't have had enough time to replicate in the hairdresser to be infectious to anybody else on that particular day.

If the hairdresser tested positive then yes - the client (and OP) would need to self isolate, but to do some tenuous link from the diet coke handler to hair dresser to client is not correct. Otherwise we'd all be isolating as via some very tenuous links, we probably all know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who has tested positive!

Isn''t the problem that although we know it can take up to 14 days for symptoms to show, we don't know how many days it takes for the infection to be detectable by a test. Not necessarily the same 14 days period. Isn't that the problem? GH

@PurpleDaisies People love making up their own rules

Or people just use their common sense, without having to revert to the gvmt website for something as simple as this!

BTW the infected person handed me the diet coke direct - it wasn't via my hairdresser.

The staff member might have just handed the coke to OP (which included touching the same item directly after her) But presumably she was in the salon the whole time and had been all day, breathing and touching various points, door handles, cash desks etc.

Ahhh - what's the common sense approach???

Or people just use their common sense, without having to revert to the gvmt website for something as simple as this!

To be fair, nobody really has had any experience of contact tracing and isolation before this. I’d much rather everyone checked what the official guidance was and followed it rather than using their common sense which is often pretty far off.

@grandehorizontale

If you don't have a high enough viral load to test positive, it is highly unlikely that you will be shedding enough virus to be spreading it around.

I don’t think you’re close enough contact to have to isolate. I wouldn’t. If it had been the hairdresser then yes I would

This is going to go to shit, people simply aren’t going to do this endless bloody times. What a farce.

I would not isolate in your circumstances

I would think that in terms of the guidelines no you do not need to quarantine. I would though avoid going and hugging a vulnerable parent or being in 2m of someone else for more than 15 mins if you can avoid it, so maybe don't go to have your nails done. If you are working then I would seek guidance from your employer. State that you are willing to come in and do not feel that you fall under the quarantine guidelines but you wanted to make them aware of the potential contact. That to me would be the common sense approach.

No, this doesn’t count as close contact at all. This person passed you a Diet Coke & then wasn’t near you again! We cannot isolate like this, it’ll have people not able to work for months on end! This is why people are not keen to get tested etc, because the implications are huge. If it had been your hairdresser, yes. But it wasn’t.

@InDeoEstMeaFiducia I agree. It’s getting ridiculous now.