Confused about day 10

[brogueish]

I tested positive on 15 Jan, so I understood that was day zero, 16 Jan was day 1, and so on. That would make 25 Jan my day 10.

Just had a text from NHS Tracing to say that my last day of my 10 day self isolation is 24 Jan.

Hopefully I’ll have tested negative for two days before then so it won’t matter. I have an in-person work meeting on 25 Jan and by my calculations I can’t be there, but NHS text suggests otherwise. What am I missing?

Did you have symptoms the day before the test? Day of symptoms is day 0 (if you had any)

Did you put symptoms started the day before?

No, symptoms started the day after the test.

Good point though!

Are you in Scotland as I think they count test day as day 1

No, England. Odd isn’t it!

Day zero is the day symptoms started OR the day of your test. So if you had symptoms the day before your test, they are right.

Sorry x post, therefore they are wrong. I do this day in day out.

No symptoms before the positive test.

Ironically the opposite happened to me. Symptoms began on Thurs 6th so that was day 0. I should have had to isolate until Monday 17th so last day of isolation was Sunday. My text said I had to isolate up to and including Monday 17th. I honestly can't figure out where they have got that from.

It’s so odd, it doesn’t feel like it should be that tricky to get right. I guess they’re sending out so many at the moment though…

Thanks everyone, I’ll ignore their text, but continue to hope for negative tests tomorrow and Friday.