Notes from Plague Island

[white_hart]

Yesterday one of the people who was supposed to be in the office today mentioned that they'd had lunch with a family member last Friday who had tested positive for covid on Saturday, and they were doing daily lateral flow tests as per the current government advice and had been clear so far, but should they come into the office or would it be better to work from home?

I said that day 6 of 7 felt low enough risk I'd be OK with them coming in, especially as C is working fully remotely for now, so there is no need to worry about protecting her.

This morning they emailed to say that today's lateral flow was positive, so they would work from home. Two hours later, they messaged to say that actually, they felt grotty and were going to log off and go to bed.

I suppose now we know that it can take up to six days from exposure for tests to register a positive and symptoms to develop. Which is useful, especially as early information about omicron suggested the gap was much shorter.

Comments

[mrs_redboots]

It does vary quite enormously. We have no idea when or where my husband was infected - and really, if we hadn't known, we'd have just thought he had a slight cold (and he is 71 now, so in a fairly high-risk age group). And why didn't I get it? Our flat is far too small for us to live separately within it.....

I did read that when someone flies in from abroad and goes to the test centre in the airport, it's not going to pick up any infection he might have picked up on the plane... and so it goes.

I hope your colleague, wherever and whenever they were infected, hasn't already spread it round the office! And that they get well quickly with no after-effects.

[white_hart]

Fortunately, they hadn't previously been in the office - Thursday was due to be their first day back in, and they wanted to double-check whether it would be better to work from home if they'd been a contact.