AIBU to say if you have a cough get a test

[ShouldWeChangeTheBulb]

I’m getting increasing pissed off with people online and IRL about not getting tested because ‘it’s just a cold’ or it’s ‘obviously not Covid’. FWIW I don’t get annoyed if someone visits family even though their not supposed to in their area. I think it’s inhuman not to have social contact so I can understand that but for god sake if you actually have symptoms lockdown straight away and get tested. I know it’s a pain in the arse but not wanting to do something is not a good reason for not doing it.
For context we are currently locked down as DS has it (he caught if from his teacher). When I tell people his symptoms I’ve lost count of how many people say ‘my dd has those symptoms but she had a runny nose last week so it’s just a cold’. You cannot tell if it’s Covid or not, the symptoms can be the same as any other illness.

As a teacher, I tend to send kids to the nurse when they are coughing about once every 2 minutes, or about 20 times in an hour. The ones who only cough half a dozen times, I leave in the class. I have to say, though, if my own kid was coughing half a dozen times in an hour, every hour, I wouldn't send them in. The other kids in the class don't look too happy either. I don't send them to the nurse, because I think I already send more kids than any other teacher in my school and I have to draw the line somewhere, so I only send the worst ones

I send a few kids a day, so obviously my definition is a lot stricter than a lot of mums

sending your child to school when they are coughing regularly is a dick move. You are putting your need to go to work or your desire to get your child in school above the safety and actually potential life of others who may be vulnerable. as a side issue you are also risking the bubble being closed which will affect all the children. We all know that you get coughs with colds but you can gt cold symptoms with corona virus.

A cold isnt always just a cold.

Gosh I'm really shocked at how many people are not willing to follow the guidelines and are surprised that people think they should! Yes it will be inconvenient, yes it will be expensive and for some people ruinous to self isolate if they can't get a test and need to continuously self isolate, it's going to be a fucking awful winter. Where have these posters been, do they not read the news? This is not new information! I've not taken any annual leave since Easter, I have been saving it for the inevitable isolation periods that are going to come over the next months. I'm lucky that I get paid annual leave and I can take it at short notice if I need to. I'm cancelling meetups with people who are in anything but 100% health as I don't want to risk the DDs getting a cold whilst doing anything except essential activities such as school, I'm not going anywhere I could be tracked and traced. I've got delivery slots booked as far as I'm able so I know we are good for food if we have to isolate for 2 weeks at the drop of a hat. We've known all this since March!

Oh come on! We all get coughs at this time of year. The important distinction is a dry persistent cough. A productive cough related to a cold foes not need testing.

Those that need tests would get them quicker if people took them when needed and not because they had cold symptoms. I've recently been told that an employer in my area requires two negative tests before someone can return to work. Madness!

@pincertoe
It does not need to be a dry persistent cough to trigger the need for a test.
It has to be a ‘new continuous cough’.

I honestly don’t know where these people work. If I turned up to work with a cough but said ‘it doesn’t feel like Covid’ or ‘it’s not a dry cough’ they would send me home and be extremely pissed that I’d come in and exposed people.

@ShouldWeChangeTheBulb

I honestly don’t know where these people work. If I turned up to work with a cough but said ‘it doesn’t feel like Covid’ or ‘it’s not a dry cough’ they would send me home and be extremely pissed that I’d come in and exposed people.

So if you coughed a couple of times randomly during the day you'd be sent home.

Okaaaaay. Well as long as they pay you to do nothing.

Getting a test because you have a new, persistent cough is not a hysterical over reaction

But people have coughs all the time!

This is what you are all just not getting. I go out and run, I might cough because it's cold. It's a really cold day today and I cough because of that. I come into a warm house and I cough because of that. I eat a carrot and it goes the down the wrong way and I cough because of that, not a choke, but it causes an irritation. That's four coughs already and we're not nearly up to 24 hours yet.

Do you get it yet? I do know the difference between that sort of cough and an unusual cough.

A friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner has made clear you do not test for a snotty nose either. I wonder how many nurseries and schools are still insisting on it?

@cologne4711 no one is saying get tested if you aspirate on a carrot. If you normally cough a few time’s a day then the cough is not new.
I

@cologne4711
A snotty nose is not a symptom

My DD was sent home from school after "developing a new persistent cough". Yeah, on a sunny day when grass was being cut outside their window in an old dusty classroom... she started to cough when saliva went down the wrong way after she had sneezed due to the dust and grass. She couldn't get the choking cough to settle and sipping water didn't help. No coughing at any stage of the day before that nor did she cough again once she managed to get it under control. No temp, no loss of smell/taste etc, but had to go home and waste a test for choking on saliva...

@Dontwanttobeyourmonkeywench
If she wasn’t coughing for an hour then they didn’t follow the guidelines.
That must have been a right pain.

It feels like a waste of time but for the third time let me post the actual NHS definition

this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours

So that’s 3 coughing episodes in 24 hours. Not three coughs.
And / or coughing for more than an hour.

The posters who are making up their own rules rather than follow NHS guidance terrifies me. As a CEV primary school teacher my life potentially depends on parents not ignoring the guidance.

Collosal pain and no common sense applied. She was coughing for 15minutes or so. Obviously a classroom full of teens then got the smell of blood in the water and there was a lot of coughing. School realised that it wasn't going to be feasible and changed policy, but not before loads of kids got sent home and ended up with nearly a week off because there was such an increased demand at the test centre that people were getting postal tests and having to wait for delivery and results.

As a PP said, they know themselves that certain things trigger a cough, which is normal for them. Dd has now had to have a note added to say that dust/grass trigger coughs so that she's not sent home after PE because they're outdoors 🙄

@Al1Langdownthecleghole
Thank you that’s what I’ve been saying.

@Dontwanttobeyourmonkeywench
My understanding is that a new continuous cough would not be a cough in response to a known allergen like grass or dust. But would be if it is in response to illness or cold symptoms.

DS was sent home from school with a cough so I looked online and found he could have a test that same afternoon. Negative result came back after 30 hours so he is back to school on Monday.

Don't assume that there is a delay in testing everywhere.

Cologne. Really? You're being deliberately obtuse. Coughing on a bit because a carrot went the wrong way is not a new, persistent cough or an 'episode' 🙄 Clearing your throat, ditto.

All the posters who are so sure their coughs are down to colds can't be sure without a test.

We have to calculate risk on a societal level. Not individual.

Not coming back to this thread, it's irritating me too much. OP, thanks for starting the discussion, it's been eye-opening, and not in a good way.

I wish everyone would stop being irritated with individuals. The guidelines on the NHS website are (deliberately?) a bit vague. If it said a new cough without an obvious underlying cause that isn’t a viral illness (asthma, allergies, chronic smokers, choking on something etc) or coughing more than usual if you have an underlying condition that generally causes you to cough then it’s clear you need to test. If it say 3 coughing episodes that’s a bit open to interpretation. If you add to that some local authorities, like mine, sharing guidance that you shouldn’t test OR isolate for a mild cough with cold symptoms & some medical professionals giving similar advice it’s unsurprising many people have come to the conclusion they don’t need to test for what obviously appears to be a cold. Someone earlier also mentioned that cough in children with Covid is atypical & if that’s the case the local guidelines I got make a lot of sense to be applied to kids. Doesn’t mean they apply to adults. We’ve all had the same cold. Youngest child coughed on waking every morning and occasionally through the day. Based on the NHS website I’d have got her a test. Due to the local guidelines I didn’t. She might possibly have had Covid but if so then it’s already way too late to do anything about as it’s already been through her entire year group of 45 and probably infected hundreds of people by now. The lack of preparation for the inevitable volume of colds in winter and need for extra tests when schools went back was woeful. The ability to redirect tests to areas with more cases also appears to be woeful even though the capacity issues are supposed to be at labs. Asking people to just isolate for 10/14 days because the test strategy isn’t sorted out isn’t a solution. I can’t help but wonder how much more likely a person with a cough is to have Covid than a person with no symptoms at all. If it’s 1/35 with symptoms (based on 3% of tests being positive in last reported period) is it

Oops - was going to say is it 1/1000 or so without symptoms or less or more. If you assume we tested everyone with symptoms (which we clearly didn’t) & theory is 80% are asymptomatic then we must have something like 80,000 people a week with no symptoms which is ~0.1% or 1/1000. Lots of people with symptoms can’t get a test though so the numbers could be loads closer together. What if it turns out it’s really 1/50 with symptoms or 1/100 with symptoms and 1/200 or 1/250 without. How close together do the numbers have to be before it just seems disproportionate to people to ask individuals to lose 2 weeks of income due to a lack of tests or about a weeks income due to delays getting & processing one.

@whatkatydid2013
The guidance does go into more detail and says pretty much what you just summarised. I don’t feel it is ambiguous but others do so it is ambiguous to them (or they don’t read it).
I do think a large proportion of people are using the ‘it’s an obvious cold’ to help soothe their cognitive dissonance. Knowing they should test but not wanting the huge disruption.

The calculations you provided are exactly why I feel it should not be left up to the individual to make their own mind up about whether it’s worthwhile to test or not. It’s extremely complicated.
I’ve followed the rules, but my DS has become ill and we are all at risk and having to miss work etc because someone else along the line felt that the rules didn’t apply to them.
IMO We should either all just take it on the chin and go about our daily business understanding the risk or we all follow the rules and behave as a society not individuals. Otherwise even though my family follow the rules we are at risk because there is no way of knowing if the people around us have even bothered to stay in when they have had symptoms.

I think the NHS testing portal is missing a trick by not asking which of the three symptoms you are testing for (it only asks you to confirm you have one of the three symptoms). If they asked, and it turned out that 0.000000000001% of people who only had a cough (no temp, no loss of taste) tested positive, it would give them a rationale to amend the guidance around the definition of cough, when associated with colds.

@Tarararara

I think the NHS testing portal is missing a trick by not asking which of the three symptoms you are testing for (it only asks you to confirm you have one of the three symptoms). If they asked, and it turned out that 0.000000000001% of people who only had a cough (no temp, no loss of taste) tested positive, it would give them a rationale to amend the guidance around the definition of cough, when associated with colds.

Yes I do, however I do think that they take symptoms when going for a test?

I do think that the guidelines are not clear as so many people are not coming forward with a cough and deciding for themselves that it is just a cold. They should at least check with their GP by phone.

Its personal judgement, I have coughed more than three times in 24hrs - I don't have COVID!
I tested my son when he developed a cough, we drove 310miles round trip. Your point is testing is not easy to acquire at the moment. So yes op you are being unreasonable.