Isolation variation..

[NewallKnowall]

Can anyone help me puzzle this out?

We've had no calls from T&T at all so not been able to discuss this.

Day 0 - attended birthday party at a pub, was mostly in the beer garden but buffet and bar inside, used shared toilets and gave lifts in car

Day 2 - informed that 2 people from party had felt unwell the evening after the party and tested the following day and were positive. We began isolation as a family.

Day 4 - dd had sneezing and hay-fever symptoms, improved with antihistamine

Day 5 - dd had headache and stomach pain, felt concerned re covid

Day 6 - dd and ds coughing so book tests

Day 8 - both positive

I've received a text as a contact telling me to isolate for 10 days from ds symptoms beginning - is that right? He is the last person to have developed them so I can see that that may give a very safe margin but there is information elsewhere to say if you do your 10 days and remain symptom free you can go out?

They won't have known you were isolating already if you weren't told to do so by T&T in the first place

This is a good point. If they don't ring then I'm legally bound to obey the text though aren't I?

Would I be allowed out earlier if I could speak to somebody?

Nope, unfortunately if you are self isolating as a household and one person develops symptoms then the clock resets on everyone else's self isolation period.

Why? Because (in this case) your DS may gave caught covid at the original site of exposure (party) but you didn't. However now your DS is infectious, you could catch it from him and that could take 10 days to be apparent. So you need to go from 10 days from when he started showing symptoms.

Sorry, its really shit for you! Hope your kids feel better soon.

The timer doesn't reset on the isolation periods. This graphic shows what happens

Although I suppose that starts with a positive case in the household

Thanks. I can see that makes the most sense (although I'm double vaccinated etc etc)

Presumably DD would be allowed out a couple of days earlier though?

There was an graph on the BBC website earlier this week saying that if you ended your 10days symptomless then you were free and only the positive case resets their clock, but that doesn't make sense for the reasons you say.

Thanks demented. That's what I was wondering. Does it start from our close contact ie on Day 0, or with our first household member?

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/if-youre-told-to-self-isolate-by-nhs-test-and-trace-or-the-covid-19-app/

This suggests you would restart isolation from the 1st person who got symptoms so that would be your dd rather than your ds.

From the link

But reading that it supposes that the other members of the family didn't have the earlier contact you did with an infected person, and weren't isolating prior to you developing symptoms?

So their isolation is 10days from their first contact with a confirmed positive person, and ours was a few days prior to dd becoming ill so we were already isolating

In this case, the family member testing positive trumps being a close contact of a case, so forget the being a close contact at the party , and follow the rules for the family members isolation periods. So you (Mum and Dad I’m presuming) started your 10 days from the start of your DD’s symptoms, DS then tested positive, so his 10 days then starts again from the date of his positive test,

It’s confusing isn’t it, every person who tests positive is told they and their household must isolate for 10 days. So even if others have already tested positive and isolated, surely the last person to test positive would restart everyone’s (as a member of their household) 😐

Ignore the contact at the party. Once your dcs got symptoms the 10 days restart for your particular family. I would probably count your dds 10 days from her sneezing symptoms and then your ds's 10 days from his symptoms. Your 10 days would be from your dds first symptoms and would end when her isolation ends.

@ForeverFloating

It’s confusing isn’t it, every person who tests positive is told they and their household must isolate for 10 days. So even if others have already tested positive and isolated, surely the last person to test positive would restart everyone’s (as a member of their household) 😐

That's not how it works though if you look at the graphic previously. Isolation doesn't restart for other members of the family if they don't get symptoms

Think of it this way, if the folk from the party hadn’t told you, when would you isolated from? Presumably DC’s positive test?

We were in a similar situation where we only knew of contact as the persons family text us. Not through T&T

We are in this exact scenario. T&T said 10 days from the first household members symptoms (or in our case test date as symptoms weren't obvious). Anyone else in the household either with symptom pr testing positive starts counting their 10 days again, everyone else continues on original date.

That graphic assumes that everyone in the house stays 2m away from everyone else. In reality that won't happen so practically speaking the clock should reset whenever someone gets symptoms/positive test result and everyone's 10 days should start again.

To be honest, no one is checking and everyone seems to have run out of patience, so just do what you think best!