If in doubt - get tested!

sporina

So, 2 bros live at home with Dad.. 1 bro was ill for about a week.. said it was a cold.. (even though he was sweating and had funny taste in mouth, coughing etc).. apparently said "no need for test - just a cold). Dad 83, other brother is v vulnerable (medical reasons) and Mum is in a nursing home.

Now Dad is in hospital with Covid! (we wer only told about bro being ill after Dad's admission)..

This is a nightmare - Dad visited Mum on Sat.

This bro is so ignorant.. he shudda been tested!

Moral of the story - if in doubt - please get tested..

TomSweeney

Hope your Dad recovers.

User1998

Over 90% of adults are vaccinated. Me and everyone I care about is vaccinated. I’m not getting tested for a runny nose

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948522#Comment_117948522

What if you had Covid symptons?

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948522#Comment_117948522

vaccines are starting to break down after a few months in some situations, we may all need to eventually get a third shot. it would make sense if a person showed signs such as loss of taste or smell, along with other symptoms, to simply get tested, just to be sure

kippy

At the very least, whatever about a full PCR test, if people have symptoms at all, they should get an over the counter antigen test.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948581#Comment_117948581

bloody expensive here though compared to other european countries, 50c each in germany, probably subsidised

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948563#Comment_117948563

I probably still wouldn’t get tested. I’d just stay at home like I normally would with any other illness. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve went for a test three times in the past, but I’m recovered and vaccinated now, all of my friends/family are vaccinated. Everyone is vaccinated. Time to move on. If someone wanted to meet me for a coffee or whatever outdoors I’d have no problem doing so, as long as I felt up for it and they were okay with me having symptoms. Likewise I would have no problem with meeting someone who had symptoms as long as it was outdoors. Obviously in the past I would never have done this, but the situation is different now.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948571#Comment_117948571

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948778#Comment_117948778

again....... theres still a possibility we re all asymptomatic!

MIRMIR82

I agree, I had sore throat and head ache last week. Rang sick into work and went for test. I am fully vaccinated but I don't know everyone's circumstances that I work with. They might have family who are vulnerable or not vaccinated. I certainly work with one guy with very sick children who aren't vaxed yet. I am completely aware of the fact that a lot of others wouldn't have bothered...but that's my moral standard for myself. BTW I don't get paid while I'm out sick.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948808#Comment_117948808

..you should get paid, either from your employer, or from the state, we all need to behave like this for the foreseeable, but not everyone can take time off, unpaid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948571#Comment_117948571

Vaccines are not "breaking down". The initial immune response in some more vulnerable people was such that natural waning over time left them more vulnerable to serious infection prior to immune system kicking in. The overall effectiveness against serious illness in the vast majority of the population remains way in excess of what best expectations were 12 months ago

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950188#Comment_117950188

so how come half of current hospital covid patients were fully vaccinated , and some health care staff are now becoming infected with covid? yes, this is indeed an extremely small percentage of the population, but the truth is, we simply dont know the true effectiveness of vaccines, there is a possibility many of us currently could be asymptomatic, i.e. yes, vaccines are currently working, but....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950216#Comment_117950216

99% of those most vulnerable to hospitalisation are vaccinated yet they only make up half of hospital admissions. That's an incredibly successful vaccine.

Numbers below will include immuno-compromised individuals in all age groups who were never going to have a strong vaccine response. This is UK data, so the over 70's, the least likely to have a good immune response, and all vaccinated 6 months at this stage.It is still extremely effective

Atlantic Dawn

Hope he gets well soon.

Out of interest what was each of their vaccination status? I'm convinced I am going to get it myself but hope the vaccine reduced it's impact to little more than a mildish cold, we are not getting below 1000 a day anytime soon.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950428#Comment_117950428

I predict that we will be under 1,000 a day within in the next week.

Black Swan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058209643/if-in-doubt-get-tested

My university employer agrees with you in terms of testing all faculty, staff, and students if one of them shows symptoms. The university pays for all tests. And there is no delay when getting tested.

If positive, you are quarantined for 10 days with pay. It should be noted that ALL faculty, staff, and students must and have been vaccinated without exceptions (no religious, med condition, or politics excuses accepted). Vaccinations are paid for and without delays. The mandate has worked with 100 percent now fully vaccinated. No guidance yet regarding boosters.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950408#Comment_117950408

yes, again, vaccines have indeed been and continue to be, extremely effective, as your data shows, and as does irelands data also show, but the reality is, theres still deep unknowns with this thing. we still dont truly know how its going to cope with further mutations, this isnt over yet, and the fact we re heading into that time of year again.....

Black Swan

Across the pond only a tiny few hospital admissions are by vaccination breakthroughs. The vast majority of hospital admissions and deaths today are by the unvaccinated.

Interestingly those states that voted for Trump in 2020 tend to have the lowest number of vaccinated today, and the highest hospital admissions, compared with most other non-Trump states. The Deep South and rural Midwest states are today at risk accordingly.

The fact that Trump as president refused to wear a mask for the first 4 months of Covid may have suggested to his followers to avoid mitigating strategies like testing, masking, distancing, and vaccines before and during rallies, fund raisers, and special Rose Garden events?

fits

wiping out his electorate.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948610#Comment_117948610

True - NHS handing them out for free.

Cheapest available are probably LIDL.

byhookorbycrook

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950441#Comment_117950441

Yeah, because primary schools aren't allowed to notify parents of a case, no contact tracing and lots of asymptomatic spreaders won't be identified.

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951102#Comment_117951102

They can notify of a case. They just can’t say who it is surely ?

2ndcoming

They're €7 in Apple Green garages

mickdw

The amount of ignorance and selfishness going around is unreal.

I see it every day. People won't tell if they have covid. They don't want to stay in and just don't care.

We had a covid case in the family. All tested.

I was negative but contact tracing said I was ok to go about my business as vaccinated and no symptoms. I thought this was nuts.

I stayed in as to go out and about while living with someone with covid is just not acceptable in my book.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117951283#Comment_117951283

Genuine question, if someone in your family had the cold or flu, and you had no symptoms, would you self isolate and take sick leave from work? Or would you go about your daily life as normal?

Everyone is vaccinated. Covid is of no threat to the vast majority of the population. Its time to stop hiding under our beds and get back to living like normal. Covid is going no where.

mickdw

I will admit Im self employed and work from home (long before covid came about) so it made it alittle easier to stay in.

Cold or flue, no but covid still has the unknown about it and it does still hit some people badly even with vaccine.

I cancelled maybe 3 or 4 meetings during the period I decided to isolate. I could have had covid at any stage so if I had gone out and about, I would possibly have given it directly to 5 or 6 people at those meeting alone. It's a pretty sh1tty thing to do and people did that even before the vaccines came along just because they could.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117954984#Comment_117954984

If asymptomatically infected, you have a <1% chance of passing SARS-CoV-2 on.... to people living and breathing in the same household as you.

Live your life.

mickdw

Quite frankly, I don't believe that stat. If that is correct, there should be no fear whatsoever of asymptomatically infected people whereas in reality, the entire control measures were based around quarantining possibly exposed person's.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117956034#Comment_117956034

I mean I linked the systemic review and analysis that shows a 0.7% chance of an asymptomatic person spreading Covid to others in their household. Not much I can do if you have pre-existing bias against believing it now, is there?

There was another interesting study out of Cardiff uni, that found that people base their level of fear of covid on the restrictions implemented by their government, rather than on any assessment of the actual data around Covid. "They would never shut everything down if it wasn't super duper serious" sort of reasoning. The more likely people were to judge risk based on government action rather than data, the more likely they were to support lockdown and other mitigation measures.

Anyway. Up to you what you believe.

Lumen

@MilkyToast wrote:

I mean I linked the systemic review and analysis that shows a 0.7% chance of an asymptomatic person spreading Covid to others in their household

I think you have misunderstood the meaning of secondary attack rate. The secondary attack rate for symptomatic cases was 18%, that doesn't mean that the average symptomatic person has only an 18% chance of infecting "others in their household". It means that each person in the household of a symptomatic case had an 18% chance of being infected by that case. So in a household of four people there was a 45% chance that at least one would get infected by the index case (and even then it is confounded by clustering and further transmission).

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957090#Comment_117957090

I have just scanned that doc. I would suggest you are over simplifying the findings.

As I said previously, if asymptomatic people posed such little risk, the numbers would not blow up like they have done in the past and the whole control mechanism introduced would make no sense.

I'd suggest the 0.7 percent relates to the risk of infecting any given household contact.

If there were 7 people in the house, that's a 1 in 25 chance of passing it to someone while showing no symptoms.

A symptomatic spouse was something like 30 percent likely to pass it on. I didn't see the figure for asymptomatic spouse but I imagine it would be higher than 0.7 percent. The report also said that older are more susceptible so that percentage would increase there again and add in higher than normal household contacts and the figures will increase again.

If 3 kids come in from school with asymp. Covid, 0.7 percent would suggest an 8.5 percent chance of one of them giving it to someone in the house. That's danger territory.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957225#Comment_117957225

As stayed very clearly, I was not talking about symptomatic cases.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957390#Comment_117957390

Where do you get that 8.5% from?

shesty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950624#Comment_117950624

Vaccination and mask wearing has become a political statement in the US.Friends of ours moved back from the US lately (NY), and said they find it really weird that they can just wear a mask here and that everyone is wearing them and nobody really notices.Over there, they would have routinely had remarks passed on their mask wearing while out in coffee shops or similar.It has reached a stage (they felt) where it was like wearing a badge to state who you voted for.They have been in the States a long time, but the political divisions of the last 4 years or so played a large part in their move back to Europe.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957422#Comment_117957422

That was a quick tot up while half asleep but something like this:

House of 7 with 3 kids coming in asym.

4 remaining susceptible people.

Each kid has a 0.7 percent chance of giving it to each remaining susceptible person.

So each kid has a 2.8 percent chance of giving it to someone in the house.

3 kids so 3 x 2.8 is 8.4 percent chance of some kid giving it to some one person in the house.

May not be entirely 100 percent correct but that's where I got it from.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959390#Comment_117959390

I disagree with your math but I'm heading out the door so we'll let it stand, and I'll just say that if your fear comes from a dependence on a scenario arising where three family member out of seven are asymptomatically infected and this gives you a less-than-10% chance of someone else in the household being infected with a virus that has a <1% CFR.... well. I guess I'd understand it if one of the other adults in the household were a frail 89 year old with diabetes, kidney disease and COPD, but otherwise it seems like an extraordinarily high level of risk aversion.

Black Swan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117958139#Comment_117958139

Indeed. The USA has a history of testing and vaccinations for various diseases fully justified based upon decades of public health research and development. Many contagious diseases were eliminated or almost so within their borders.

Most public K-12 schools required students to be vaccinated as did the US military. And my university employer paid for all my recommended vaccinations before traveling to international conferences to give scholarly papers. Only a tiny, tiny number of USA conspiracy theory anti-vaxxers protested vaccinations based upon misinformation before Covid.

That changed dramatically late 2019 with Covid as led by Trump, who belittled Covid mitigation strategies like mask wearing and social distancing at his political rallies with thousands squashed together shouting in super spreader fashion. Trump refused to mask in public for the first 4 months of Covid in the USA. Trump politically weaponized Covid against his opponents and influenced his millions of followers accordingly. Trump supporting governors in states like Florida, Texas, and South Dakota, followed suit as did high Covid infection rates.

Lucky for me I live in a small university town where science not politics rules. We test, vaccinate, mask, and socially distance without silly pejorative finger pointing by bullying Trumpsters. Any Covid Karens we meet are recognized as Out-of-Towners and told to mask per Covid city public health regulations.

sporina

Hi All, update - and I am only posting this as it might save another life.. Mum tested +ve for Covid last Monday week and passed away the following Friday... Dad is still in hospital! Could not attend Mum's funeral - so yeah - get tested!

BobHopeless

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969397#Comment_117969397

So sorry for the loss. May she rest in peace.

Goldengirl

Sorry for you and your family's loss . RIP .

I'm really sorry for you loss sporina.

Some people are too selfish to get tested and self isolate because it might put their life on hold for two weeks. If your young its a mild illness.

RIP

I don't understand your brother with two elderly Parents at home.

sporina

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969423#Comment_117969423

thanks - a vulnerable brother and Dad at home with him - Mum was in a nursing home but Dad had been visiting her every other day..

selfishness and ignorance..

fun loving criminal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969397#Comment_117969397

So sorry to hear this.

StemCell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948522#Comment_117948522

Vaccination doesn't prevent it, I have it now.

My 8 year old son caught it first in school.

He was a bit listless and not eating.

We booked us all in for a covid test.

He was positive, me, my wife and 6 year daughter were negative. Then my daughter caught it the next day with bad vomiting all day. Then I got it the day after.

Even after a double Pfizer vaccination I got fevers, chills, congestion, dry cough etc.

Am on day 3 of that with really bad nights sleep. The scary thing was sitting perfectly still in bed at night and my heartrate was 120bpm from my fitness band as covid can affect the heart too.

It's probably the equivalent of a bad head cold now but still not gone.

If we hadn't made the effort to get tested then there's a kid with cancer in my daughter's class who probably would've caught it.

It's totally selfish to not get tested if you've a fever or 2 of the other symptoms.

sporina

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117985776#Comment_117985776

gosh sorry to hear that - hope you all feel better asap..

yes my parent's wer both fully vaccinated.. just shows.. boosters much needed..

as my dear Mum would say - "none as queer as folk" - people with symptoms not getting tested.. dunno how they sleep at night

StemCell

The kids shook it off reasonably well.

8 year old son... A bit listless and not eating for about 2-3 days.

6 year old daughter, hit harder.. vomiting all day, couldn't even keep water down, you could tell by her face she was very sick. But back to herself in 3 days or so.

And I feel better today, it's only like a congested head cold now but still highly contagious I imagine. Can't see myself leaving the house in the next 10 days (to check actual time) and probably after another covid test.

People who don't get tested and isolate are lacking in moral decency and social responsibility. You can have a nanny state with strictly enforced lockdowns or hope that by lifting restrictions people act like decent members of society and do the right thing on their own. Unfortunately appealing to people to do the right thing voluntarily doesn't always work. They're probably the ones who were protesting over lockdowns too.

Risteard81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957090#Comment_117957090

Absolutely. It's essentially a false flag. Governments are never shut down the country before because it was neither morally nor legally acceptable (or affordable). It remains immoral, illegal and unaffordable.

screamer

Sporina sorry for your loss. Sick of the “as long as I’m alright” attitude of assholes regarding Covid. Selfish f@cks.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117987719#Comment_117987719

The virtue signal is strong in this statement.

People who don't get tested and isolate are lacking in moral decency and social responsibility.

That argument has lost its standing after the mass vaccination rollout. Either trust the vaccine or lock yourself up for the next decade if you want to avoid covid. There is a life, only one, to be lived and the vast majority want to live theirs. Finger wagging and tut tutting people for living their lives reeks of drivel from a jerk in an ivory tower.

rahmalec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997142#Comment_117997142

That’s not what they’re saying.

They’re saying that if you feel sick, get tested and stay home until better. I think (apart from the get tested bit), that would have applied before covid.