The new variant - how much contact is required?

[tenlittlecygnets]

I don't think I've seen how long a contact is required to catch the new variant of Covid. The old one was 15 minutes. Is this one less?

If anyone has any links or advice, that would be helpful!

The new variant that started in the UK and innKent and the south-east, obviously... 🙄

They said on the radio this morning that if someone without a mask sneezes in a supermarket, you could catch the virus by walking through their sneeze particles two hours later!

@mdh2020

They said on the radio this morning that if someone without a mask sneezes in a supermarket, you could catch the virus by walking through their sneeze particles two hours later!

Which radio station? Link?

I just mentioned this on another thread:

well I have been sheilding all year and DH going to work and supermarket once a week in a mask. They only have to wear visors at work not a mask. Managed to avoid it all year until Xmas and then DH got it and now I have it. A person at his work had a bad "cold", didnt get a test. DH did not have direct contact with him but entered a room around an hour after him and we think that is how he got it. It must be the new variant. Highly contagious.

@beautifullyengineeredspecimen

I just mentioned this on another thread:

well I have been sheilding all year and DH going to work and supermarket once a week in a mask. They only have to wear visors at work not a mask. Managed to avoid it all year until Xmas and then DH got it and now I have it. A person at his work had a bad "cold", didnt get a test. DH did not have direct contact with him but entered a room around an hour after him and we think that is how he got it. It must be the new variant. Highly contagious.

I would have thought statistically it's more likely he picked it up in the supermarket?

(Or from direct contact with someone asymptomatic at his job)

One of the things I question again and again is whether take away food is a risk.

I noticed this morning that there were numerous Pizza Boxes in the recycling out for collection (we have a Pub doing Pizzas close by).

Surely if you can contract it through a supermarket delivery or by contact with someone out walking, you can contract it if the person handling your food has the virus asymptomatically?

@LickEmbysmiling

Oh god which one in Japan

Exactly.

What new delight has 2021 for us now.
Did this one mate with Ebola?

I hadn't heard of the one in Japan from brazil until this thread either. It was only reported yesterday by the Japanese. I don't think it's any worse than the British one from a quick Google

Visors don't offer any protection against the virus, they only protect against "splatter" eg if someone sneezed in your face. Medical staff only wear them in addition to a mask.

Clearly the new strain is highly transmissible, however, it doesn't mean everyone will automatically catch it. My ds had the virus (mild symptoms and positive test) a week ago and is now fine. The rest of us are living in close contact with him and are all perfectly well. We've tested negative in the last few days. We haven't distanced at all at home and ds is not known for keeping his germs to himself. We are, of course, isolating ourselves for the required period.

I just don't get it, how some people are picking it up having never left the house whereas we have been pretty much immersed in it to no ill effect. Anecdotal, of course, but I'm sure there are many other cases like ours.

@Dawnlassie

somebody saying you can catch it over the phone. Not sure if true.

And via Zoom

My friends brother caught it last week. He lives alone. Her parents who are shielding now have it. They haven't seen him indoors but her DM dropped shopping off (that she had delivered) and stood and chatted at the door for a few mins distanced with a mask on. She got symptoms a few days later so she either caught it then or was pure coincidence and she caught it from the delivery

Yeah, not sure I'd hang around chatting at someone's door if they have covid, even with a mask on.

All the 15 minutes/2 metres apart stuff is a fairly arbitrary time and distance that they decided on because they had to eg for test and trace cut off calculations. It doesn't mean that if you only spend 5 minutes with someone 2 metres apart that you can't possibly get it.

And that's even without taking into account the higher transmissability of the new variant.

"You can't really interrogate people when they're ill, but two of them I know are shielding, WFH, shopping deliveries, no children in school, no partner going to work, not seeing anyone at all. Only going out to walk or run."

A huge part of the problem is that a great number of people would say that they are being super careful, but this means completely different things to different people. I have friends who say that they are taking it all extremely seriously, who go out to the supermarket, the post office, Greggs, to meet up with friends in the park, you name it. And I have friends who say that they are taking it all extremely seriously who don't leave the house at all.

This makes it very difficult to know with any kind of reliability where the boundaries of safety are.

From (unreliable) anecdotal evidence, you can get the new more transmissible variant by being in a supermarket for a relatively short length of time. I know a couple of people who have it who say that they "only" went there who are relatively trustworthy.

I've just seen the news that a Brit has gone to Japan, skipped quarantine to go to some restaurants and has spread our new variant over there.

What a knob.

Well, in many other countries they are talking about Covid in terms of an airborne disease. Not sure why they have shied away from it here in the UK (barely mentioned) as knowing it is airborne may have actually made people think before they broke the rules about mixing indoors.

I agree, @verticality . Also, if you’re shielding, you should be in isolation . If you choose to mix with others, then you’re obviously not shielding! I don’t know why people continually don’t get this. There was a poster on another thread bemused as to how her shielding dm got covid when she hadn’t been out... and then said her df went to work.

Why do people always excuse their own personal circumstances and preferences? So the virus has always been caught off the post and never from that quick cup of coffee round at Brenda’s or that time they met up with the grandchildren.

I think all covid+ people should take a truth drug!

@IrmaFayLear do you rely think it is reasonable for all shielding individuals to stay in what would amount to solitary confinement for a year? For those that have a family this would pretty much mean staying holed up in 1 room.

As an official shielder, I totally get it, and did not say it was reasonable to stay in isolation.

What I did say was that a person can’t say they are “shielding” and don’t know where they caught the virus when they obviously haven’t been shielding.

Eg my dd was going to school. So if I caught covid, she would have been the transmission route, as I don’t go anywhere. I couldn’t stand there and be daft enough to say that I was shielding so I don’t know where I got it . You might be in the shielding category but that doesn’t mean you have a magic force field around you which means you only catch covid off the shopping, not other people...

That was a long explanation! But just saying that some people appear to have a strange prism they look through regarding contact with others.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. And yes I agree with what you are saying.

"Also, if you’re shielding, you should be in isolation"

Absolutely. I appreciate that this was impossible for a time, though, when the government didn't make it law that employers had to allow shielders and their other household members to work from home. I also appreciate that it's a very difficult decision to home school children in those households, though that is certainly the safest thing to do if you have someone ECV.

I think we are on the same page, though, regarding the truthfulness (or that thereof) of a lot of people. If I had a tenner for every person who has told me they are "so careful" while still going to supermarkets I'd be rich. Rich, I tell you!

@verticality

"You can't really interrogate people when they're ill, but two of them I know are shielding, WFH, shopping deliveries, no children in school, no partner going to work, not seeing anyone at all. Only going out to walk or run."

A huge part of the problem is that a great number of people would say that they are being super careful, but this means completely different things to different people. I have friends who say that they are taking it all extremely seriously, who go out to the supermarket, the post office, Greggs, to meet up with friends in the park, you name it. And I have friends who say that they are taking it all extremely seriously who don't leave the house at all.

This makes it very difficult to know with any kind of reliability where the boundaries of safety are.

From (unreliable) anecdotal evidence, you can get the new more transmissible variant by being in a supermarket for a relatively short length of time. I know a couple of people who have it who say that they "only" went there who are relatively trustworthy.

Like I said, with two of them I know they only go out to exercise, they WFH, and get their shopping delivered.

The other two I'm not so sure about because I don't speak to them every day so I don't know for sure if they wouldn't nip to the shop etc.

I do know an old person who is "shielding" but goes to the shop every day "because otherwise I wouldn't speak to a blessed soul!"