Are you preparing your home in case of Covid?

[QueenBlueberries]

The Government is now saying that most of the contagion happens in the home, so I wanted to ask if you wouldn't mind sharing any tips on how to try and prevent Covid from spreading from one member of the family to others.

I have prepared a small box (shoe box) with gloves, masks, Dettol, an old baby monitor (my kids are teenagers now but I somehow kept a baby monitor all those years at the back of a cupboard), paracetamol, face masks and a face shield. We have two bathrooms so I know how we will use the bathrooms in case someone gets infected. We also have good neighbours and we have all agreed to get food for each other if one of us get ill.

Any other tips??

For some it’s not about failing to ‘think ahead’ or ‘take responsibility’... I am doing that by following all the guidance.
The most likely route of transmission into our house is through the children via school. Absolutely no chance I will be distancing from my 6 or 4 year old. It would be cruel.

I listened to More or Less on Radio 4,I think it was. They were saying that you should be spraying all the bathroom surfaces after anyone uses it.

I think that is liable to translate as mum sprays the bathroom surfaces a lot,unfortunately ,in practice,in our house.

So I have just bought some bathroom sanitiser spray and 3 small packets of breadmix. In the car home, the bathroom sanitiser cap came off and leaked all over the breadmix.

I'm not doing very well with this

Why do people sneer at the very real concerns others have? It's sensible to have a plan.

I agree that sneering isn't nice but I actually don't think it's helpful to pretend that some of what is being described here is normal or proportionate.

No plans. Just continue with hand washing

Those of you on the thread with pre school children will be younger than those of us with older children therefore you are less at risk of severe illness and of course you can’t isolate young children and they need cuddles. Those of us with teens are likely to be in our 40s and 50s and statistically more likely to have A more serious illness therefore it makes sense to spread out where possible round the house if a teen child comes back from school with it. Viral load is important to consider and there have been cases where the first person to catch it in the family has a mild illness and others are then more exposed to particles risking a more serious illness.

@Hardbackwriter

Why do people sneer at the very real concerns others have? It's sensible to have a plan.

I agree that sneering isn't nice but I actually don't think it's helpful to pretend that some of what is being described here is normal or proportionate.

Yes, I agree... For every poster there'll be dozens of people reading, wondering if they're either doing enough or taking it too far. It's a discussion that doesn't only benefit the poster. Discussions give other people chance to reason out their approach.

Seeing some balance is helpful for me in working out what is proportionate and much better for my mental health.

@Bbq1

If myself or dh gets it, we will still be sharing a bed as our spare room is a music room filled with instruments. We do have a super kingsize bed so we can distance a bit. Anyone else with no spare rooms to decamp into?

Yep, same here.

Our spare room has no bed in it and is currently set up as a gym. One of us could sleep on the sofa but it's super uncomfortable and they would have to tolerate three cats playing on their head

We also only have one bathroom and a tiny little kitchen. Staying apart in this house is just impossible, so to even attempt it would just be silly.

We don't have a spare bedroom either. We used the sofa bed in the reception as the sick room.

The cloakroom was the designated toilet.

The kids share rooms, as do DH and I - so not really sure why all the 'mansion' type comments come from.

DH and I are shit scared of getting ill at the same time as DD is disabled.

Surely it's all just common sense.

@ChavvySexPond

It's jolly interesting how much the idea of people organising their own lives in their own homes sets some people off.

Obviously some of us are more into thinking ahead and taking responsibility for ourselves than others.

But what skin off other people's nose it is I can't imagine.

How does not having a Covid box and not using a baby monitor for a 15 year old translate to not taking responsibility for oneself?

I also love the way people post their very ordinary situations as something really unusual to justify their actions. I’m in my 40s and vulnerable with teens at school as well. It’s hardly unusual. Yes I’ll do what I can but I’m not going to be OTT. I don’t think that makes me “less responsible”.

Can I pretend I’ve got Covid and come and self-isolate at yours @BiddyPop? Sounds pretty blissful

If someone in my house catches it then we'll all have to quarantine and to be honest, that is the only concern I have about getting the virus. No one here is anything less than fit and healthy. I have gloves, masks, sanitiser, bleach and NHS strength alcohol wipes anyway but I can't say I would take any additional precautions. The only two people I know that have had the virus, none of their household members caught it, one of those people lives with their 92 year old mum and she was fine while the person I know was severely ill.

Those of you on the thread with pre school children will be younger than those of us with older children therefore you are less at risk of severe illness and of course you can’t isolate young children and they need cuddles

Loads of people have last babies in their 40s. I am one, I have a 3 year old and I'm mid 40s. I think you'd be surprised how many of us there are.

See, I'm thinking about all those days in isolation where I'm not actually sick, or if it is an actual "low level flu like illness" where you are tired and need to rest but are not so unwell that you won't need distraction.

The reality, in my house, is probably that I will be the one to get sick, I'll be pretty bad, and end up hospitalised fairly quick due to my crappy lungs.

So I am cheering myself up by imagining the little haven I could have for my time off work (ignoring the pc in the corner of spare room) and just do nothing except what I want for a few quiet days. And no one else can disturb me with demands for stuff as I need to self isolate to keep them safe....

But ...meh...if people think I'm being OTT [shrugs]

(@MadameBlobby My spare room has a 2nd spare bed, and there is camping gear in cupboards, so as long as any extra guests respect the policy of being non-demanding of other occupants, the more the merrier!! )

I had it and my DH and DS didn't get it. We share one bathroom. DH slept in spare room. And I stayed away from them as much as I could but it wasn't always possible

I’ve prepared for when we will need to isolate as it may be just me and my son if my husband is away with work by making sure I have enough nappies etc in as well as some easy baby friendly meals in the freezer for us. But I’ve not prepared for isolating one family member from another. Pretty impossible for my son to isolate as he is a baby. If my husband has to isolate due to track and trace, we are going to isolate with him as we are all low risk. My view is that is my husband has been in contact with someone positive, our close contact before the confirmed test means that we should be careful in case he has it and has already passed it to me. I’m on maternity leave and have some annual leave left before I return to work, so it just means I don’t meet my friends for walks, go to our baby group that is still running (atm) or go to the shops. It makes no difference to us financially but I know that it is a privileged position and there are many who can’t isolate this very cautious way. We nearly had this a few weeks ago when a work colleague of DH’s had symptoms but he tested negative so discussed this then as a family.

@Lugubelenus

It's Covid-19 not the plague. As long as you are in reasonably good health, you will be unwell for a short while and make a full recovery. There's no need for these extreme measures, talk about panic mongering!

I currently work on a Covid ward and I've managed not to infect anyone in my household, probably because good hand hygiene and good quality appropriate PPE actually works to stop the spread.

OK so on the one hand - no need for extreme measures. On the other hand - your family are healthy because you get to wear PPE round covid patients and therefore haven't had it. Talk about contradictory!

It is extremely sensible to try to keep sick people away from people who aren't sick, even for mild illnesses, and in fact government advice from very early on has been to keep anyone isolating or in quarantine for coronavirus away from the rest of the household if at all possible.

It's also perfectly reasonable to plan ahead as to how you'll achieve that rather than rely on winging it once the first sick person comes home. Obviously you can't do it with young children or in some other situations. Often you can though and a bit of thinking ahead can make that a lot easier.

People who are dealing with this pandemic by telling themselves that catching coronavirus is trivial and not even worth avoiding obviously aren't going to understand any of this. If you believe it is actually worth avoiding then it makes a lot more sense to do a bit of planning and preparing. Even if you still catch the virus from someone in your home, if you've managed to arrange things so they don't have to spend hours in the same room as the rest of you, the chances are you'll get a much lighter dose of the virus and might be less ill.

I’m a nurse and my good friend and colleague tested positive but her three teenage daughters and husband had no symptoms and they all shared a bed!

Is was in reasonably good health. I was sick for 3 months and have still not completely recovered.

I

tested positive but her three teenage daughters and husband had no symptoms and they all shared a bed!

So five fully grown people share a bed?!! Dh and his teenage dds. That sounds unrealistic and a bit weird.

I haven’t prepared at all really

Well no, obviously not at the same time but she slept with her husband in the same bed and her daughters watched tv with her in the day. Ten points for trying to make a witty remark there though

I had it last week. I live in the smallest terraced house with one bathroom . My kids didn’t catch it .
We didn’t take any extra precautions as I wasn’t aware I even had it at the time.

Nope, we're not doing anything. We have one bedroom and one bathroom and I'm not sleeping on the sofa so we'll just have to get on with it.

For those who have plans who have teenage kids it’s actually a good idea as will also cover the situation where a child is sent home from school if their bubble bursts. So they have to isolate but the rest of the family doesn’t. So the teen can go into the isolation room whilst the rest of the family carry on working etc but less likely to spread the virus if the teen happens to be asymptomatic.