How quickly could you pass on Covid? Or do they not know ?

[handsoftime]

I'm seeing my parents Xmas day, they have not been seeing anyone or going out. We've been careful too. But then they reveal they've seen my DB today, he came to their house and spent the day. DB is a primary school teacher. So if he has Covid, no symptoms and passes it to my parents, would they be infectious on Xmas day? I just wondered how long it takes to actually start being infectious or is this still the great unknown? I'm annoyed and have a good mind to cancel seeing my parents are this was not agreed, but I understand he's their child too.

Incubation period seems to be 3-14 days from what I've read.

We are all in Tier 2 btw, but I know things are changing and still it's only meant to be Christmas Day.

@dementedpixie so does that mean if they caught it then they won't be contagious that quickly? I obviously don't want my parents to catch it but they took the risk.

I wouldn't have thought they'd be contagious as quickly as Christmas day. Average time is 5 days until symptoms but they can shed the virus 2 days before symptoms start.

They might be. I saw the person I caught it from on a Tuesday and tested positive on the Friday. My contacts were taken by TTP from the Wednesday so by their calculations I was infectious 24 hours after the contact and 48 hours before symptoms. As far as I know the only people I passed it on to were dd2 and dh - dd2 tested positive on the Monday and dh on the following Tuesday.

@FlyingFlamingo oh really that's interesting. Why did you test ? Did you get symptoms?

Yes - I started coughing on the Friday

@FlyingFlamingo wow you were lucky to get a same day test and result. Hope it wasn't too bad. So it was super quick from the contact to developing it

Test and trace are using 48hours.

I didn’t get the results the same day, they took 2 1/2 days

The average is 5 days for symptoms and 2 days before that for being infectious, but it can be quicker than that. It’s entirely possible if they picked up covid from your brother they could give it to you on Christmas Day. They’ve been selfish breaking the rules and putting you at risk, but now it’s your envision to make whether you want to take that risk or not.