Had it. Can spread it?

[PamDenick]

Ok, so if a young person has had it, can they still spread it?

I’m thinking of Christmas and young person catching it about two months ago, recovering and now coming home for Christmas. Not so worried about me but about over 70s grandparents...

I don’t think there’s a comprehensive answer to this yet, just like that they don’t know if you’ll still spread it when you’ve been vaccinated against it. I’d presume yes, as there’s no evidence otherwise right now.

Apparently they are not contagious after 14 days. Who knows if this is correct. All I can say is I have been around people who have had it for a few weeks now (social distanced as much as possible) as have others and we haven’t caught it. Even their GP told them they wouldn’t be contagious and the most contagious stage is before any symptoms and the first few days. Let’s hope this is accurate but like I said before, who knows.

Ok, both thought provoking posts. Thank you.

Never safe. Once you've had it you're contagious forever more. it's worse than leprosy. It never gets better. The vaccine won't fix you even. You need to be locked away like a horrible criminal.

I might as well write rubbish like that. It's what people want to believe.

@lljkk was that aimed at me? I’m happy to be corrected and learn, if I’m wrong. I was going from what Whitty and the BMJ has said... but like I said, I’m genuinely happy to learn otherwise. It’s almost impossible to know who to listen to now.

*“Population immunity will occur if we have vaccines that can reduce transmissions between people," Whitty says.

He says they have a "high degree of confidence" that the vaccine reduces the risk of serious disease "by a large amount".

But, he says, "we don't yet know if this will lead to a reduction in transmission".

"We hope we will have a vaccine that protects the person that has it and protects people around them, but we will have to wait and see over time," he says.*

As far as I am aware, you are most likely to be shedding right at the beginning of symptoms, and not contagious after 10 days.

Oh course they aren’t infectious two months later?! You are infectious for around 7-10 days, possibly a tad longer but they’ve reduced isolation to 10 days now as they think that’s how long you are infectious for. It’s a new virus but it’s still a virus. You dong remain contagious from any virus for months & months.

However, there is a chance they could catch it again. We don’t know how long immunity lasts. So you can’t confidently say they can’t possibly have caught it again. But it’s unlikely in 2 months. But if they have symptoms, they should test again.

@lljkk your post is rather odd. Op asked a question and your reply was for what? Attention i assume because it didn't really contribute.

Two months in the relative should be free of the original infection.
She could test again to be safe?

I hope not. My teenage son had Covid about a month ago. The other three in the house didn't appear to catch it - or if we did we were All asymptomatic minus him.

He goes to school, sits with us etc. If he were contagious still then what's the point of the health guidelines to stop isolating after 14 days if well?

We are not seeing my mother indoors 70s because I worry my other teen could catch it at school (tier 3 masses of cases in his school too). The son who's had it, well I assumed he would be safest of all. I'd hate to think family were considering avoiding him, he's been through enough this term with six isolations and a dose of Covid that knocked him about.

@MoirasRoses

Oh course they aren’t infectious two months later?! You are infectious for around 7-10 days, possibly a tad longer but they’ve reduced isolation to 10 days now as they think that’s how long you are infectious for. It’s a new virus but it’s still a virus. You dong remain contagious from any virus for months & months.

However, there is a chance they could catch it again. We don’t know how long immunity lasts. So you can’t confidently say they can’t possibly have caught it again. But it’s unlikely in 2 months. But if they have symptoms, they should test again.

Herpes, HIV, human papilloma virus, hepatitis B, etc, etc.

Herpes, HIV, human papilloma virus, hepatitis B

All of which are viruses very different to a coronavirus....

I would be very careful about scaremongering because that’s effectively what you’re doing.

OP, I’d suggest doing some research elsewhere because you’ll just get opinions not facts.

@middleager

I hope not. My teenage son had Covid about a month ago. The other three in the house didn't appear to catch it - or if we did we were All asymptomatic minus him.

He goes to school, sits with us etc. If he were contagious still then what's the point of the health guidelines to stop isolating after 14 days if well?

We are not seeing my mother indoors 70s because I worry my other teen could catch it at school (tier 3 masses of cases in his school too). The son who's had it, well I assumed he would be safest of all. I'd hate to think family were considering avoiding him, he's been through enough this term with six isolations and a dose of Covid that knocked him about.

Some people do keep shedding the virus for a long time but it's probable that most people will no longer be infectious by day ten. As far as I'm aware, there haven't been any studies that definitively give us an answer about what proportion of people are infectious at particular times post infection though. Choosing ten days will have been mostly a political decision based on factors such as testing capacity economic considerations and compliance rates together with some educated guesses from SAGE. The very low incidence countries tend to not allow people to stop isolating until they've had one (or sometimes multiple) negative test(s) but that would be a nightmare here, especially at times when demand for testing is high anyway.

You are probably correct that your son who's had it is the safest but it's definitely worth assuming that everyone has it when it comes to spending time with vulnerable relatives.

I think this is impossible to answer at the moment. I know someone who has had it twice, about 4 months apart.

I think its safest for teenagers to keep well away from 60+ people. Hopefully there will be plenty of future Christmases.

@Iggly

Herpes, HIV, human papilloma virus, hepatitis B

All of which are viruses very different to a coronavirus....

I would be very careful about scaremongering because that’s effectively what you’re doing.

OP, I’d suggest doing some research elsewhere because you’ll just get opinions not facts.

Pointing out that someone is just plain wrong is scaremongering? And yes, coronaviruses can also lead to chronic infection.

www.vet.cornell.edu/animal-health-diagnostic-center/veterinary-support/disease-information/feline-coronavirus

Following

I wouldn’t personally worry about this. I work in a university which had a surge of cases back at the beginning of term and now we have around 12 active cases (even after asymptotic testing over the last couple of weeks) in 50 000 students and staff. If the students who had it back at the start had stayed infectious for long periods I don’t think we would have seen the dramatic drop in cases.

Your relative won’t be infectious from the first event (assuming they have normal immunity), and they should have antibodies. But, antibodies protect them from getting sick with covid, it doesn’t stop them getting infected again or potentially spreading. But, if reinfected they probably wouldn’t have high viral load as their immunity kicks in. Vaccines protect individuals and if we’re lucky they’ll stop mucosal spread (like kids nasal flu vaccine).

It massively annoys me that there isn’t much information available for this question and you may call me a conspiracy theorist but I don’t think that is due to a lack of scientific understanding because essentially this is a coronavirus and they have been studied for years. Instead perhaps the answer doesn’t fit the current government narrative desperate to keep everybody at home?
Anyway, from what I have been able to find, it seems that human bodies are pretty efficient and so it is quite normal not to find antibodies to every Tom, dick or Harry virus circulating around at any given time. Instead, when immediate antibodies are not needed anymore, the information for how to reproduce them is stored in T Cells. If the body (your son) were to come across the covid 19 virus again, in line with normal human viral response, the antibodies would be re-made and released. As I understand it, although he might carry covid for a short while, his antibodies would ensure that he did not actually suffer from the illness due to a lack of surviving viral load. No illness suggests very low to non existent chance of passing an illness onto someone else (when talking about coronavirus or flu viruses spread by standard cold symptoms).

anyone can spread it theoretically if they have touched something covered in infected droplets, not washed their hands, absent mindedly touch their face, then kiss granny, granny will get infected

But that person will likely not catch it again themselves, but they can still spread.

seems very unlikely given our handwashing etc, but theoretically an immune person could still be a vehicle for spread if they are not careful