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).

Viral load, resulting from all of the above, IS a factor in teachers becoming particularly ill.

They are not blagging @Watapalava, you may want to think that or stick your head in the sand to ignore it, but schools are struggling. Teacher retention is only going to get worse. If people are jealous about teachers getting sick pay then maybe they could train as a teacher and see how ‘easy’ it is in schools.

I am still isolating, masking, and maintaining distance. But I have a laundry list of co-morbidities, so COVID, even with vaccination and booster, would almost certainly kill me, and I find that I'm not done yet.

No i don't work in factory

I work in gov setting where i come in contact with at risk people of 100+ a day (i'm not going into further details)

It is not about exposure but risk when you have it! That's why teachers etc were rightly not vax first. It#s the risk of illness when you catch covid, not the risk of catching it itself.

i'm not knocking teachers- if you knew my job you'd get why - but people are actively exposed to covid positives everyday in their office now and are getting on with it. Kids are in the main largely asymptomatic and have been throughout so most teachers have worked along covid +ve everyday for last 18 months.

Now with them being triple vax the level of concern looks like excuses.

Bless you, Mamanyt. I really feel for the 'invisible' group who have had to isolate and who have been forgotten about by so many - and for the extraordinary bravery of those who have to make decisions about e.g. schooling for children vs health risks. I hope that there will come a time when more effective and specific vaccination, better and more rapid treatment, and lower levels in the community can allow you more freedom.

Testing if symptoms or if been around someone positive. I'm currently positive. I'm a teacher, my head won't let me back to work before 10 days or negative lat flow before the 10 days. I'm on day 5, still positive. I tested because I'm ill, it's my second round of covid.

I'm not at work and I've not been mixing with people, I've been taking my daughter to her after school activities but not getting out of the car. I'm not so ill I can't do that but I am I'll enough to not be able to do much (so weak and tired).

I work mon and friday. I had a weak positive today so hoping to get 2 negatives before Monday!

Work aside I have been careful and only been in house or car. I have not isolated within my house, everyone else has had covid recently and my oldest 2 kids have had their second jabs recently too.

I just feel crappy tbh and if I was ill like this without it being covid I still would have missed work Monday but would prob be planning to return friday. I've missed 2 days overtime/supply this week so I hope I'm negative before Monday so I can do some more overtime!

The cases in our area are the highest ever and that is with vaccines and a number of people already not bothering to test. Do you want to explain that @Watapalava?

I really hope you’re right and testing stops in schools too! The amount of teacher absences due to testing is too much for schools to deal with

@HonestTest

It may not be the answer to take away free tests but that's what they are doing. And if you're in a position of being able to afford to keep buying them then you're fortunate. Lots of people won't be able to. Will they still be considered selfish then?

No I won't be paying for tests and although people are being moralistic whilst they are free, at £7.99 for one test, I doubt many will be taking a test for every symptom.

@newusername2009

I really hope you’re right and testing stops in schools too! The amount of teacher absences due to testing is too much for schools to deal with

Testing has stopped in schools in England.

Sorry, Watapalava, about the confusion around your job. I must have confused you with a poster with similar views but a different username.

How many people work in your specific area of the office? How many are within 1 metre of you? Do you have opening windows? Do all the people you meet face you? How many of the 100 are in contact with you for multiple hours at a time?

I think there are several factors in considering the impact of Covid infection:

• How likely you are to catch Covid (9.1% of teachers were absent on March 17th)?
• How severely ill are you, and how much does that impact your ability to do your job (IME, most teachers are too unwell to do their physically demanding job for at least 5-7 days, often the full 10)?
• How many other people are negatively impacted by the person not being able to do their job (for a primary teacher, 30, for a secondary teacher, 150 a day, could be a whole school if you teach a minority subject)?
• How feasible is a replacement (there are no supply teachers available at the moment, and no budget, so almost all cover is untrained or non-specialist, making the impact of Covid in schools on pupils worse)?
• How likely is an infected person, if they do attend work, to pass on their illness to others (in current conditions in schools, this is very high, unfortunately, which compounds all of the above - 10% of pupils are also absent, increasingly too ill to attend, which is a fairly recent development, so I think your 1 in 4 asymptomatic / pre-symptomatic may be an out of date piece of information)

@newusername2009 do you think teachers will magically stop getting sick because testing stops.

@newusername2009

I really hope you’re right and testing stops in schools too! The amount of teacher absences due to testing is too much for schools to deal with

The rate of teacher absence due to illness is too great for schools to deal with. It will not be solved by a cessation of testing - if a teacher is too ill to work, they are too ill.

@Bouledeneige

I'm not bothering. But then I had covid at Christmas and haven't had any symptoms. I thought most covid cases now don't have the traditional symptoms they are asymptomatic.

Previous strains were more serious. omicron (both variants) is no more harmful than a cold.

It's not true that Omicron is no more harmful than a cold.

Testing has stopped in schools in England.

And funnily enough, despite this, teacher and pupil absence has risen dramatically....

We still have to test at school if we have possible symptoms so any cold symptoms.

Testing hasn’t stopped in schools - it might not be a legal requirement but teachers are still testing and phoning in sick due to positive lft.

I don’t understand this feeling that teachers have a harder life than anyone else - whether it is popular or not teachers can afford to be off sick whilst other professions cannot because they don’t get paid. Teachers are not the only ones I am sure so I’m sorry if this sounds like teacher bashing - it’s not that - it’s about differences in contractual terms for different professions

I completely accept that teachers - and many other professionals - are lucky because we get sick pay.

By only mentioning that teachers do, though, it does sound a bit as if you feel that teachers UNIQUELY are skiving when they test positive for Covid, and that teachers UNIQUELY are not at all ill but only testing positive?

As a teacher, all I can say I that teachers are falling ill with Covid in huge numbers, and regardless of testing are too ill to work. They are not skiving - being ill as a teacher is too hard work to make that worthwhile, as we have to provide cover anyway.

I cannot speak about other professions. I describe what i myself experience in my own job.

I would ask whether you believe that all others who are given sick pay are regarded as genuinely ill with Covid if they get it, and it is only teachers who are using it as 'an excuse'? Or whether you want to believe that teachers aren't really ill (because that suits your narrative) and so are mudslinging to discredit them?

Still testing before I meet friends, go to work etc as a matter of courtesy, covid is spreading fast and a few people I know have been really unwell with it, I know a young healthy person who died from it a few weeks ago

Testing hasn’t stopped in schools - it might not be a legal requirement but teachers are still testing and phoning in sick due to positive lft.

I think you have this the wrong way round.

Teachers are falling ill. They are testing (as required by their employers and stated in Government guidance) because they are symptomatic, and then finding themselves positive. They are then phoning in sick, and absent due to illness.

Tested DS1 twice this last week as he's been quite ill with something else and in and out of medical places and having a cough didn't quite fit with other illness. Tested myself last week before going to a covid related funeral as it would have been awful to have been asymptomatic and passed something on but that's the extent of 2022 testing here.

"No I won't be paying for tests and although people are being moralistic whilst they are free, at £7.99 for one test, I doubt many will be taking a test for every symptom."

This is not true.

lloydspharmacy.com/products/lateral-flow-test-kit-non-travel?variant=39554170028095

They are available for £1.86 already, and the price may come down further.

It's not true that Omicron is no more harmful than a cold.

In this context, it is worth looking at reports of Chris Whitty's recent comments, including the fact that the number of people in hospital with Covid in two regions of England has climbed to the highest level for more than a year:

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/nhs-under-pressure-from-new-covid-wave-across-england-says-chris-whitty

Nearly £2 for a single test is still pretty expensive though, especially for families with multiple people to test.