People are just going to not bother getting tested

[MNnicknameforCVthreads]

If they can’t get a test, surely people will think sod it and not bother.

I’m so angry with the government for not sorting their act out. It’s about time they were held accountable. In any other profession they’d have been sacked a long time ago for utter incompetence.

This is before you take into account all the people who can’t afford to self isolate.

If government want people to do this they need to pay them full pay.

AIBU?

This was predicted by me and several other posters becuse you literally cant send back 8m people plus teachers mass gatherings with no measure (that are effective).
Even if kids did? Spread covid less they dont other bugs.
Lots of people have been inside loads of buildings, pubs/soft play even and planes.
Better advice would be
If you have the 3 stay at home and isolate family and test.
If you have sore throat etc or runny nose or d&v do not go out unless essential. So no zoo/soft play etc.
As some others will get a cough with your just cold. By helping others they help you. At least do not go inside anywhere.

Also people do need to start hand gelling kids hands after the park as even if say it dolidnt spread there other viruses may well.
I actually feel that about schools changing the books and libraries etc. Covid might live under a week but other bugs live months...

Also a lot of people are not social distancing their kids. Which is silly as they will spread other bugs too.
So if say you do get a covid negative (which are sometimes wrong 25% false negatives) consider if you should be going to the pub etc as you could still be causing others to need to SI miss school and use up the tests.

Also if it is covid people may be more likely to distance in their home/wear masks around the ill person than if you cant get a test...
You cant really have anyone stuck in their room for 14d.
But anyway the big issue is that with no test the bubble continues probably killing of vulnerable teachers and parents

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54146755?at_campaign=64&at_custom4=3868EDD2-F693-11EA-B107-ED8796E8478F&at_custom2=twitter&at_medium=custom7&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom3=%40WalesPolitics

Coronavirus: 18,000 test results published by mistake

The details of more than 18,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus were published online by mistake by Public Health Wales.

some details.

Oh that makes it alright then.

I have a question about school bubbles: if your child's bubble has to close due to a positive test, do all the households of that bubble have to isolate as well, or just the children/staff who were actually at the school? (And then obviously if other kids get symptoms their households do have to isolate etc).

@SoManyActivities

I have a question about school bubbles: if your child's bubble has to close due to a positive test, do all the households of that bubble have to isolate as well, or just the children/staff who were actually at the school? (And then obviously if other kids get symptoms their households do have to isolate etc).

Only the child/staff member who had contact with the confirmed case needs to isolate.

DGS 5 woke this morning with a hacking cough. He had compleined yesterday of not feeling well. By 10am this morning back to full health with a minor runny nose. No more coughing. But of course by that time I had rung his school and also my school where I teach Y5. So no school foe either of us today. Spent all morning trying to get a test, to no avail. In the end my head gave me a school test to do on him and sens away. I did this at 2. So now I have a completely well child, waiting for a test result before he's allowed back in school and a completely well teacher with no childcare for her completely well grandson so can't go in to work even if I want to. I so wish I had waited a bit before telling the world he had a nasty cough.

Only the child/staff member who had contact with the confirmed case needs to isolate.

Thanks. I did think it was that, but someone said something upthread which made me wonder if I had it wrong?

We did that! Tested as soon as we saw a symptom, only for the symptom to immediately disappear.

Not before we had told people she couldnt go to school. In retrospect, she did not have the correct symptoms to have been tested. But then of course we had to await this frigging test, which took four days.

In that four days, several patients had cancelled operations because we could not work. Our cleaner and other trades could not visit so they lost work.

I will not test again in a hurry.

Couple of pages behind, I agree with you 100% OP.

From the beginning, WHO have been telling us that the basic strategy for every country should be to find, test, isolate and care for every case, trace and quarantine every contact.

We ignored that for a long time because boris had better ideas about british exceptionalism and lucrative contracts for his mates.

From about June it looked like we were at last on the right track, even if we still had a long way to go. Now it's all fucked up, instead of trying to fix the problems with testing and provide support for people who need to isolate, he's once again come up with a new exceptionalist grand plan, costed at £100 billion, based on a technology that hasn't finished being invented yet.

The cherry on the cake is the proposal to prosecute people who don't isolate when they need to. How dare he suggest that when there's no support in place?

I hate him worse than Thatcher.

My son has had cold , cough the weekend, can’t get a test, he is much better today back in school tomorrow
He has had 6 months off. Spent all last week squeezed in a classroom . One lesson he said had no windows never mind ventilation. If he had Covid ( don’t believe it was) then he had already shared it

I am one of those who would not bother trying to get tested, but my reasons for this and my circumstances are probably not very common.

If you only have mild symptoms (anything short of requiring hospital admission), there is no treatment offered or required, so there is no medical reason for getting tested. I live alone, so I am in the situation where complete self-isolation is easy and also has no financial consequences, so I would just go ahead and self-isolate. I would inform the very few people I had been close to myself.

@jcyclops

I am one of those who would not bother trying to get tested, but my reasons for this and my circumstances are probably not very common.

If you only have mild symptoms (anything short of requiring hospital admission), there is no treatment offered or required, so there is no medical reason for getting tested. I live alone, so I am in the situation where complete self-isolation is easy and also has no financial consequences, so I would just go ahead and self-isolate. I would inform the very few people I had been close to myself.

Can all of the very few people you have been close to also isolate without dificulty @jcyclops? Or might they need verification from test and trace before they are able to take 14 days off work?

It’s just ridiculous

The cherry on the cake is the proposal to prosecute people who don't isolate when they need to. How dare he suggest that when there's no support in place

YY @LangClegsInSpace Tory Bully Boy tactics.

I saw a post from another MNer that said "they dont want to manage the spread of the virus, they want to manage the blame for the spread of the virus.

@HelloDulling

Also if those results come back positive it's 4 days where their contacts haven't been isolating but carrying on as normal.

Their contacts should start isolating as soon as the person showed symptoms, not wait for the results to come back.

No the household has to isolate if someone has symptoms, not contacts.

I agree OP. If people can’t get a test quickly they won’t bother. A lot won’t isolate either, or at least not for the full 10/14 days.

I would seriously hesitate to test anyone in our house again after our experience

I hate him worse than Thatcher.

Me too.

We do need to be cross with the government about the system, but having said that I think we still need there to be plenty of social pressure between ordinary people to do the right thing and test and isolate with symptoms. Not testing and not isolating still needs to be seen as a bad thing - just a bad thing some people are forced into doing.

So I think it's OK for the default reaction to someone with symptoms saying they won't be testing or isolating to be disapproval. Understanding could be close behind, if they turn out to have reasons why it's going to be particularly hard for them, but it doesn't have to be the default reaction. (And not just understanding - ideally help, in some way, at a local level, to make it more possible for people to do the right thing.)

If we let that social pressure to do the right thing go, then it won't just be the people who can't afford to isolate who won't do it - it will also be people who don't bother when they could do it quite easily, and that will mean more spreading of covid which will be worse for everyone, especially the people who will suffer most from having to isolate.

The cherry on the cake is the proposal to prosecute people who don't isolate when they need to. How dare he suggest that when there's no support in place?

Bearing in mind the costs of policing, CPS, courts and the administration of any sanction, I suspect it would be cheaper for the state just to pay the wages of people who need to isolate and can't wfh.

The latest sin is to 'game the system' whereby you enter the postcode of another area hundreds of miles away which allows you to get a test just down the road, which if you put in your own postcode would not be available to you.

Matt Says we shouldnt do this.

Matt can fuck off!

The system shouldn't be capping the number of tests allowed by postcode...

... If they don't want people to game the system maybe they should make a system that works and has enough capacity.