'Do an LFT before you go out'

[Powersout]

I'm feeling pretty stupid at the moment. My husband tested positive on PCR on 23rd December and started isolating but as my daughter and I were testing negative on LFTs we decided to carry on with the original plan to go to my parents' for Christmas day. My parents were informed about the situation and had no hesitation in letting us come as long as LFTs were negative on the morning. Of course, I woke up with symptoms on Boxing Day and tested positive on an LFT and later PCR. Yesterday my Mum tested positive and now my Dad is showing symptoms...

In hindsight it was such a stupid thing to do. Earlier in the pandemic theres no way I would have gone to my parents house if someone in my household had tested positive. But I have followed government guidance throughout and was therefore following the 'do an LFT before you go out' message that seems to have been rammed down our throats over the last few weeks. But you can be highly infectious 2 days before you get a positive LFT cant you? So why aren't the government qualifying the message at all with this information? I get that it's a simpler message for the majority of the public who have no known exposure to positive cases but shouldn't the message be different for those of us who have had prolonged contact with a case? Or are we meant to just use our common sense which surely is not a great idea for a public health message?

As I said earlier, I feel bad and stupid for passing this on to my elderly parents. Not looking for sympathy but wondering if anyone else agrees that the message is confusing?

The rules regarding still being able to go out if testing negative on a lateral flow are designed to keep the economy functioning not to keep individuals safe.

The Government, as you'd expect, are focused on the economy and population en mass and a level of illness and deaths will be expected.

If you want to keep your own family and friends safe you have to make individual decisions that prioritise that.

I hope you all recover quickly but visiting relatives when you have clearly been recently exposed to Covid by someone you live with is an extremely high risk thing to have done.

I wouldn't have risked it tbh

OP the guidelines are there to help people with their own risk assessment.

You chose a slightly riskier path (and one I would have chosen so I am not criticising that) so not sure what you are upset about.

Guidelines are there to help people decide and laws are there to enforce them. You blindly followed guidance as the 'law' and now you are annoyed but honestly that is down to you not thinking it through. And no I don't think the messaging is confusing at all.

@Katie517

In England you don’t have to do a PCR as a household or close contact the guidance says you are “strongly advised to do a LFT for 7 days” why do some posters insist on making up their own rules?!

That was the rule previously. I was a close contact in October and the Gov website advised to get a pcr. That has now changed to daily lat flow.

It's not people making up their own rules it a change in policy.

@Powersout I agree with you that the LFT for 7 days is not good advice for household contacts. Dd3 (15) had a sore throat on 23rd (so not official symptom but known to be an omicron symptom) and positive LFT on 24th. I took all 3 kids and myself off for PCR not realising that the rules had changed so we shouldn't have gone. DH scrutinised rules, roundly told me off for wasting resources. Dd3 and Dd1 (asymptomatic) came back positive... but not until Boxing Day by which time my 90 year old dad (staying with us) and myself had cold symptoms but negative LFTs. Took dad for PCR anyway, came back positive, by which time dh and I had positive LFTs so we PCRd positive. All these delays meant dh and dd2 had been out to two running events with their negative LFTs- I didn't go because I felt the point was to let you go to work or do essential shopping rather than socialise (if they made this clearer you wouldn't have gone to your parents)... and of course dh did regret that he went once he got a positive LFT the next morning. He did distance and stay outside though so not passed it on we hope.

I typed "guidance for household contacts covid" into google and this was the top result.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

It says "If your daily LFD test result is negative, it is likely that you were not infectious at the time the test was taken. To further reduce the chance of passing COVID-19 on to others, you are strongly advised:

to limit close contact with other people outside your household, especially in crowded, enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces"
(and other measures).

I'm really sorry this happened to you, OP, and best wishes for a speedy recovery for all. But it is misinformation to say, as some pp have, that the guidance is hard to find or unclear.

I don't know anyone who would've seen people over Xmas with positive cases in their house.

I hope you all make a fast recovery.

Flipping heck surely its common sense?.If he had norovirus or chickenpox or any other contagious disease would you still have went?.

Sorry OP - I really hope your parents don't get too ill.
All the posters telling her to use her common sense etc I bet a lot of you either have or would send a dc to school or go to work in that situation.
Does it only matter if you spread it if it's your family?

You did exactly the right thing and have nothing to feel bad about. Your parents made the decision right for them, so please ignore those people suggesting you should have made a different one for them. One of the more unpleasant aspects of this is the arrogance with which some people patronise older people, taking decisions away from them to protect their own conscience. You followed the rules and afforded your parents the respect to decide. I hope it proves as mild for you all as it is for the vast majority.

@Didyeaye

I completely agree with you. I work for emergency services. Got asked to man the covid reporting line. Fed all info back to our HR department and one came back and said that those who had no symptoms (only done pcr because they knew loads on their team were positive) could come to work as long. As they're double jabbed. What a crock of shite. I've ignored email and told everyone I've spoke to who called up in last week that the def do have symptoms and won't be coming to work.

One of my friends who is a nurse said anyone who is pcr positive but fit to work is being asked to come to work and work on covid positive wards.

DD had symptoms just before Christmas and we booked her a PCR just to make sure, lateral flows were coming up negative.
Until we had the results we stayed away from everyone and isolated - PCR came back negative so we were good
We all done LFT's over christmas (us and family) as a precaution.

DP went out with 4 mates on Boxing Day, all done lateral flows that were negative. Had a message 2 days later from one of them to say he had a positive LFT and now his PCR is positive. He feels awful, but like we said we all know the risks when we go out and mingle. It's personal choice to do that.

I'd like to think we are sensible whilst still enjoying ourselves and meeting people. That being said had one of us in our house tested positive, we would all isolate "just incase"

It's not a criticism, it's what we do
Hope you and your parents are OK OP, please don't beat yourself up about this x

Sorry op, but I don’t think there needed to be a specific message for this, surely you knew there was a significant chance you were harbouring it?!

This. And we know LFTs aren't as accurate as PCR tests. Also, symptoms take a couple of days to develop during which time we're already infectious. So perhaps it was a little naive to go see your elderly parents when your partner has covid?

I hope you're all well.

The rules are a separate issue here to common sense.

You can follow the rules. The rules do not affect your risk profile. Understand the difference between rules and risk. They are not the same thing!

You had a household contact. It takes several days to become infected. Engaging your brain would tell you that meant you were at high risk of becoming positive a few days later. Probably whilst at parents. And if that happened you would be at your most infectious.

This is why i despair of people just blindly following these rules and over relying on lateral flowing like crazy in this situation.

Don't see vulnerable family if you have a household positive within 10 days if you can help it! Its that simple.

The experience of schools has been that one child gets it, but siblings are supposed to be in school still. However they tend to get it and manage to pass it on to class mates in the interim between starting daily tests because its one of the most infectious periods.

This led to Public Health England going against the government advice and telling schools which were having large scale outbreaks to send home siblings. A friend at a school which had problems early on and worked closely with PHE said they were advising families to do a pcr 4 days after the first case in the household and not immediately because they tended to first test positive on average 4 days later.

I actually thought this was fairly widely known by this point. Its not been a State secret. There's threads all over MN about it. Once someone in the family gets it, everyone else does tend to go down with it one by one unless you get lucky.

All the lateral flows tell you is you haven't tested positive yet - they don't tell you if you are incubating it and are about to test positive. That's why managing your exposure and number of contacts where you can is advisable.

The inability of people to understand that lateral flows dont 'keep you safe' has always bothered me from the start. People wouldn't see vulnerable family in this situation without them. Its a false sense of security because people think rules are infallible and ltfs are a magic protective force field.

Its like the people who borrowed from Northern Rock who came out with the wisdom 'well they wouldn't have lent it to me if I couldn't afford it' rather than doing their own due diligence and questioning whether it was really a good idea.

Take advice. Follow rules. But also engage brain and don't rely on the State to provide you with infallible advice. It just doesn't work like that. Manage your own risks too.

I'm not sure what you are expecting people to say on here. Validate your choices? We're almost 2 years into this pandemic now, OP. None of us are newcomers to this anymore. Common sense would suggest that if someone in your household tests positive you shouldn't be going and spending a day indoors with another household.

I hope it's a mild illness and all households get better soon

@twinkletoesimnot yes you would likely go to work school etc but the guidelines clearly say avoid vulnerable people etc
At our work we have policy of a pcr if household mrember positive but even then a pcr is only valid the day you take it
Every time we meet someone or go out at the moment its a risk , thats how it is
I can test on A LFT but no guarantee i haven't got it and tomorrows lft shows up positive or that lft don't detect
My ds had covid none of us caught it from him we did a pcr day 3 and day 10 , we could of gone out but we chose to stay in anyway and limit our contacts just incase as even after first negative pcr we knew we could still become positive later

Close contacts need PCR days 2 and 8 don't they? My friend tested negative on LFT's, yet had a positive PCR. I'm not convinced LFT are that accurate to be honest.

@Mybalconyiscracking

Your parents made their choice, I hope you had a nice Christmas Day. I am sure that you will all be fine. Beating yourself up about it won’t do anyone any good.

This. Your parents were made aware, they knew there was a risk. You are all grown ups in charge of your lives. Hopefully all will be ok.

My parents were informed about the situation and had no hesitation in letting us come

So why beat yourself up?

Hope you're all ok.

I think common sense should come into play here. If your husband was positive on 23rd then surely you would have known you could still be in incubation period? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I wouldn’t have risked that with my Grandparents personally (but they are elderly 70’s and not in the best of health).

Anyway it’s done now and both your parents were aware so there’s no point lingering on it. I hope you all make a swift recovery.

I know you can't go back and change your decision now, and you were working within the rules, but I wouldn't have gone out with a positive case in the house - whether I technically 'could' or not.

But you asked your parents' opinions and they gave you the go ahead. They had the responsibility for their own decision there, so although it might be a bit of a kick yourself moment, it's not your fault.

These are ridiculous times we're living in, and nobody knows the right and wrong things to do, really.

I hope you feel better soon.

I wouldn’t have risked it either.
It’s one thing not to isolate while testing negative. Keeping a distance and mask wearing etc.
It’s another to go and visit elderly relatives with a positive case in the house.
Anyone relying on government guidance to keep them safe is rather foolish. The decision for close contacts not to isolate is clearly an economic one.

I mean, while the rules are a bit confusing, why have you forgotten how to use common sense?! C’mon. I HATE the Tories but you can hardly blame them in this situation. Use your brain!

We’ve all had a stomach bug recently. DD had it first & the rest of us seemed fine for 48 hours. However, I made a conscious decision not to send my younger DD to my parents house as usual for childcare because I was well aware she might be harbouring it! My DH & I also didn’t see my parents for a planned lunch as again, wary we might come down with it. And sure enough, she got sick along with me a couple days later.

It’s common sense. I don’t need some rules telling me what to do. I wouldn’t go anywhere near my parents if any of us had covid. Lateral flow or not. They are constantly exposed to the risk and are out living their lives & that’s fine but knowing we had a positive in the house makes it a pretty clear pathway.

Hope you're all ok OP. For most Covid is not a serious illness for vaccinated people with no underlying health issues.

Unless your parents are shielding, they could have caught it in any number of places at any time.

The guidelines also say this as a close contact (who is exempt from isolation)

limit close contact with people outside your household, especially in crowded, enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces