Being honest, who else is doing this?

[HonestTest]

Talking to a group of friends who are split between what they now do in regards to Covid. None are CEV.

Some still testing for every symptom on either LFTs or PCRs and isolating if positive as previously required for up to 10 days (or early if neg day 6/7).

Others, like me, now not testing at all even with potential symptoms and just staying in until they feel well enough like they would have in 2019 whether that's 3 days or 10.

What are you doing now?

When tests start to cost I imagine we'll see the number of people bothering with them drop but it's been very freeing to not have to bother anymore with the circus of scrambling to find a box of gold dust lfts every time my DC or I sneezes and just treating what could be potentially Covid (I wouldn't know) like anything else.

(I appreciate the answer to this will be entirely different if you are CEV and that these people will still have access to free testing and will understandably want to do so).

To be clear once the guidance to keep away from others If you have covid ends 31/3

@Watapalava

Do you really think no one can/will text?

Just today my work emailed me saying they’ve got hundreds of boxes of LFT and just ask when needed.

We're in France where the rules are a bit different and we had it quite recently (start of Jan and also back in April 2020). My impression is a lot of people have stopped testing and just don't want to know. We are testing only when "supposed" to -- so every time there is a case in one of the DC's class, we are supposed to test that DC once 48 hours later but if negative they continue to go to school and the school doesn't ask for any actual proof either way so some families could be fibbing about it. We are doing those tests as instructed but nothing extra. We keep them off if properly unwell of course but with ordinary cold symptoms carry on as usual as long as test negative. Most of DS1's class has a heavy cold at the moment including him, several are off with confirmed covid but the rest have tested negative so are still at school. I suspect they've all got it but they've been disrupted enough in my view. I am heavily pregnant but if I and the baby don't have some immunity by now after endless jabs / re infections then we never will!

Of course you don’t care @Bananabutter, you’ve already made it clear you are only thinking of your own needs so no surprises there.

Im classed as vulnerable. I'd test with symptoms and then isolate, but I'm not testing randomly if not needed.

But I've had 3 jabs, COVID twice and due a booster so should hopefully be fine.

Never tested, never had symptoms. If I thought I had it I would probably test but would still work and try to social distance. I would avoid shopping, get groceries delivered is no hassle.

I don't believe I'd have been in a terrible state with Covid had I not been vaccinated as a 20 something healthy adult.

One of the worst affected people I know of was a late 20's, female, PE teacher with no pre-existing health issues who caught it early 2021, so that's a massive assumption to make.

I feel more relaxed about it than I thought I would be.

I carry a mask on me in case I find myself in a particularly crowded/poorly ventilated environment, and still keep sanitiser in my bag and the car.

We have a few boxes of tests (me and 17yo DD who is at 6th form) and have tested every other day recently when we both were in contact with people who tested positive.

I'm a carer for my elderly mum so have to be fairly cautious as there's no-one else to support her if I'm ill, never mind the implications if I pass it on.

I’m going to assume that’s aimed at me? If so, yes. We’ve been to an aquarium today and yesterday to the park. Tomorrow we’re going to our favourite restaurant.

We have to live with covid now, not hide away.

Sure. But it depends what you mean by ‘live with’. We ‘live with’ loads of illnesses. We live with chicken pox and norovirus. And I wouldn’t dream of going to a restaurant or a busy attraction if I or my children had either of those viruses.

‘Living with’ something doesn’t mean ‘behaving how you want with no regard for the rest of society’.

I'll continue testing and isolating for as long as tests are available. DD tested positive for COVID today. Having said that both me and DH work from home and have very understanding employers who wouldn't dock any pay or disadvantage us otherwise.

Of course teachers are still testing and isolating even though it is no longer required - they get full pay so can afford to. Someone else will cover their class so it’s not like people who don’t get paid for sick days and their work just waits for them.

It really will depend on personal circumstances whether people will continue to test and isolate - I can’t afford to.

I haven't tested since Christmas and I don't intend to test anytime soon. If I'm ill I will stay home but otherwise carry on.
Can't afford to be off work for 10 days if I'm feeling okay

I must test daily for work and will have to for the foreseeable, it’s no trouble at all. I still wear a mask pretty much everywhere I go. Mainly because I don’t want the ball ache of getting used to wearing them again when the next bad variant crops up and we’re facing restrictions (one will, it’s just a matter of time).

As a token of thanks to my favourite restaurant, I'm going to visit when I'm knowingly positive. Er, ok then.

DD had Covid last month and never tested positive on an LFT, only on a PCR. She was very symptomatic as well with a severe end of mild case.

So we won't bother testing anymore because the tests don't seem that reliable and PCR tests won't be available soon. We'll go back to staying at home if feeling too unwell to work / go to school but otherwise we will carry on as usual. I certainly won't be testing the children for every sniffle and cough.

When my 39 year old friend died before the vaccines came out, it knocked me for six. He was the healthiest in our bunch too, three kids without their dad.

So yeah, despite being broke as hell I'll pay for the tests, because we had covid recently, and while all apart from my youngest were up to date with all vaccines, I do not want to ever be the person that passed on an illness that can at worst, kill, and we don't even know what the long run has in store.
All I know is that my reasonably healthy fit family are still feeling the effects weeks later, ignoring it and pretending its a cold is boll)cks. Its here, and masks and tests should stay.

@newusername2009

Of course teachers are still testing and isolating even though it is no longer required - they get full pay so can afford to. Someone else will cover their class so it’s not like people who don’t get paid for sick days and their work just waits for them.

It really will depend on personal circumstances whether people will continue to test and isolate - I can’t afford to.

I test because, as a teacher, I work in a high risk environment for infection, in terms of probability of exposure and also viral load.

I have caring responsibilities for elderly and vulnerable relatives. As I do not wish to carry infection to them (as everyone knows, the more elderly and those with poorer immune systems may not mount a particularly effective response to vaccines, as well as being at higher risk of more severe disease from Covid anyway), I test.

I also test because of the various vulnerabilities of family members of the children i teach (as well as the vulnerable pupils themselves). Again, while I accept the risk for myself, I have no wish to pass infection on to others if I can avoid it.

If I am not in school, I have to work anyway, as I am required under almost every circumstance to set a full day of work for my class even if I am not in. That requires significant time and effort, as whoever covers me is very unlikely to be able to teach the unmodified lesson as I would do, so I have to re-plan, re-resource, upload, send stuff to the printer remotely etc etc unless I am hospitalised.

It is MUCH easier to go into school ill than to be off. So anyone insinuating that teachers are choosing to stay at home is misguided.

@newusername2009 teachers’ employers are asking them to test. Many teachers who are off are ill not just isolating.

once

No noone will test other than those who are generally anxious

Collective advice for CEV is gone yet people still perceive themselves at the same risk as pre vaccines - they're not! - nowhere near.

Teaches still complain about covid exposure - its never been about how much you are exposed but about the risk when you have it - again minimal if vax.

People now are fully working alongside others with covid daily and then you have idiots calling for masks/ventilation/bubbles!

1 in 4 have no symptoms, 30% estimated never tested or isolated even when required so the 'new free for all' isnt a sudden huge risk as mixing with covid positives was always there.

Yes some people will be ill - i was ill with covid for 3-4 weeks despite being in 40s and healthy and double vax and boostered but i still think we should go back to normal.

The sooner testing stops the better imo-. People are obsessed by a risk that no longer exists

Teachers will not be expected to test and isolate come 1/4

New advice is being issued in line with the gov advice change - no advice to isolate come 31/3

Im not giving my work details away but my work is more high risk than schools (and gov led so advice issued earlier) - all test, isolation rules end 31/3.
Its causing huge panic but they're not allowed to enforce any rule of any kind past 31/3.

Schools will be same i 100% guarantee - covid is being removed from risk assessments from 31/3

Watapalava,

It must be really frustrating that reality is not matching the situation that you want to portray.

Illness, hospitalisations and deaths are all rising.

Teachers are one of the most at risk professions for infection, and are generally (with current variant and waning vaccination effectiveness) generally becoming too ill to work at what is a physically and mentally demanding job that cannot be 'taken easy', for 7-10 days, which is leaving many schools without sufficient teachers to deliver an effective education.

This is not an artefact of testing. Teachers and others will not stop being ill if we do not test. They will still become ill, and will still be absent, and education and other services will still be disrupted.

It depends what you mean by 'not enforce', as well.

'48 hour absence' for vomiting does not have legal status, IIRC. Nor does absence with chicken pox until scabs are crusted over. However, schools can and do enforce these, and have done for many years, for the general public health good of their pupils - despite the lack of legal status.

Schools are in chaos in my area because staff are sick. That isn’t going to improve when testing stops

Cantkeep

No the data shows most people in hospital are secondary infections

People like me, others on here are actively working alongside people everyday, forced into work with covid - yet all you hear on here is how ill teaches are with it. I worked with 4-5 people positive last week - no big deal.

Only on here are 'teachers so ill'

This strain has proven to be milder

In ds school - hes year 11 - 13 teachers off, no kids in 750. My mate works in school and all are mild infections and would all be in work but for positive results. I'm not disputing some get sick but the % is low - if all teachers are sick in a school then they're full on blagging as out of 30 people i work with over 40 i'd say 10 have had it bad enough to miss work and thsat inc 3 with active cancer!

@toomuchlaundry

Schools are in chaos in my area because staff are sick. That isn’t going to improve when testing stops

Exactly.

I think that posters do understand this, they just don't want to think about and engage with it.

It is easier to repeat the mantra that 'everything is fine here, it will all be OK when.... isolation reduces to 5 days...isolation is no longer mandatory ...testing is no longer mandatory....[insert next desperate 'wish it away and pretend there are no illnesses, hospitalisations or deaths' measure]' than to realise that the reality is more complex, more nuanced, more depressing and needs more critical thought.

Watapalava, IIRC, you don't work in close physical contact with 30+ unvaccinated people in close quarters with little ventilation for 6 hours at a time? I think you said you worked in a factory?