How do you know how long you are infectious for with this newer variant of Covid?

[bookmarket]

I'm on my 5th day of testing positive. It's getting fainter and fainter. My symptoms started 8 or 9 days ago. The past 5 days my only symptom is fatigue/dizziness. What are the current knowns about when we are most contagious to others?

I thought I was better but nose so blocked up feel congested.
I have been very sleepy today. Not sure why. I was ill Monday and positive Tuesday.

I finally tested negative on day 13… never expected it to take so long!

I have to LFT for work (vulnerable people). My first positive a month or so ago was quite weak and it took another day or so for it to hit me full on. I started testing on Day 6. It took till Day 10 for the positive to get any weaker at all, and I didn't get a clear negative until Day 15. Some colleagues have had similar :( though some are getting a negative sooner.

I had instant positives on days 1,3,5 and 7. Negative on 9

I was negative on day 9 too

on about day 35 now and still horrendous cough and asthma attacks… I can’t seem to budge it
but testing negative….

I tested daily from day 6 as I was only allowed to work in the office once I had negative tests 2 days in a row (non clinical NHS). I detest wfh hence taking the tests.

Oh and I was negative on day 8.

I tested today ( day 6). Just a very faint line in the positive place. I’m resuming normal life tomorrow .

No, not necessarily. You can test positive from the virus and not be infectious at the tail end....

That is true for PCRs. LFDs are a good indicator of infectiousness (less so of infection - they miss infections that would be PCR-positive but with lower viral loads so unlikely to be infectious).

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-21-lateral-flow-devices-detect-most-infectious-covid-19-cases-and-could-allow-safer

I tested positive today. My throat is so sore!

I'm on Day 10 of testing and I've still got a faint positive 😢

If you have a very faint positive line does that mean it’s positive or not?

I think even a faint line means you're positive.

I’m not convinced by the official government advice. Covid finally caught up with me last month. At 5 days my lft was dark. I’m a healthcare worker and couldn’t return until it was negative ( after day ten!).

Now if the NHS truly thought we weren’t infectious after day 5 they would have us all back in rather than lots of staff be off and paying more for bank/agency. But they don’t want to risk spreading it. We’ve enough covid patients in the hospital as it is.