Could you easily quarantine for 14 days?

[Pam in CT]

re when quarantining is *possible* but immensely difficult/disruptive

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

We could arrange it, but I wouldn’t call it exactly easy as a voluntary measure. As a necessary one, yes.

The whole by-choice thing would probably mean dh would get push back from work if major things were going on, and dd would have to get other EMTs to cover her shifts. I’d probably feel guilty and give her money.  Other dd is currently working, but only for another few weeks. Our fire department would be short 3 of their most reliable responders.

I’d worry about making all those voluntary arrangements and then facing an exposure quarantine down the road, taxing the good will of others after doing so for fun.  (Which we recently did, but only for a few days until negative tests came back.).

this kind of disruption to work & organizations, and

 

1 hour ago, Ottakee said:

Thanks for all of the responses.

Besides work, I had forgotten about medical appointments.  Last week we had 8, the week before 10.  This week only 4-5.  

Some could be delayed or rescheduled or possibly done remotely but not things like blood work, CT scan, etc. that were needed asap this week.

this kind of disruption to medical care

 

to my mind definitely warrants the use of testing.  *If available*, testing enables such families to lock down for just 3-4 days (sufficient time for exposure to manifest on the test), test, get results quickly...and get back to work or normal. It's not just the FAMILY who benefits, it's the fire department and the employer and the health care providers who are able to maintain schedules smoothly and  etc. It's less disruptive to everyone.

We're into our seventh month trying to contain this thing, and we still don't have many tools in the toolkit. Hard quarantine is absolutely an essential tool, but it's a HARD tool -- hard on the individuals, hard on families, hard on employers.  Folks are understandably reluctant to do it, particularly if we believe it's unlikely that we've been exposed or if possible exposure was extremely brief or whatever.

Self-referred prophylactic testing is another tool in the toolkit.  It enables people to avoid or shorten quarantine intervals, it enables people to consider contact with vulnerable loved ones they might not otherwise see IRL, it enables people to do things they might otherwise decline doing (like having multiple, tested, families convene for Thanksgiving).  It's another tool in the slow crawl toward a state that approximates New Normal.  

 

At this point in COVID, there is no longer an absolute nationwide shortage of tests (as there was back in March and April). Something like 15 suppliers are making the tests, and manufacturing is at scale. The reason that tests are widely available in some pockets and in shortage in other pockets is (given the federal government decision not to get into testing distribution) a matter of which states have chosen to invest money into testing.

Some states have invested in purchasing tests and scaling up clinics and making it cost-accessible because those states recognize the value of testing in that crawl back to Nearly Normal. Where the tool is available, there's no guilt in using the tool. (Any more than there should be any guilt in availing of PA's most-excellent state park system, just because CT has fewer and lesser state parks.)  It's not like the resource can be picked up and deposited elsewhere.  New York has invested in testing to further public health. The reason it's there is for people to use it.

 

[Pam in CT]

17 minutes ago, EmilyGF said:

Are PCR tests taking 2 days in NY now? I'm referencing the "fast, easy, cheap" Michael Mina-style tests that are being advocated for for use in workplaces etc, to screen workers when they leave at night and then tell them whether they are safe to work with others in the morning. Yes, I think nasal swabs are PCR.

Emily

That's what my SIL and BIL had.  They had results within a few hours.

My nearly adult kids (one at university, one at boarding school) are getting one of the saliva tests (which I believe are all still in large-sample research/clinical trial usage, not available to the public).

[Wheres Toto]

We probably could have up until next week.   I start teaching next week so once that starts, I won't be able to shut down and quarantine without a compelling reason.   Dh has been working from home or his mother's house quite often the past few months so could do the same.

There's no way for juts some of the people in our house to quarantine.  We only have one bathroom and a very small house.  It would definitely have to be all or nothing.  We are all wearing masks whenever we are around other people unless it's outside and distanced, or my mother, MIL or oldest dd.   Masks are still mandated here.

[regentrude]

We could both work from home if strictly necessary because we're infected or exposed.

We could not do that just because we wanted to for personal reasons (family visit etc).

[ScoutTN]

We would certainly do it if  medically necessary. It would not be easy. 

We could not do it just for personal reasons, prep for a family gathering etc. 

[AmandaVT]

Up until tomorrow, yes. School starts tomorrow, in person. So unless school moves to virtual again, not easily. DH is a therapist that is still seeing clients online, so he is easy. DS's main activity is tennis and he could take 2 weeks off, although given the size of a tennis court, it's a pretty safe sport to begin with. 

[alisoncooks]

I suppose we could...

But any family we'd be visiting are much more "out and about" than we are, so I honestly wouldn't bother. 

 

[sassenach]

We could but we wouldn’t unless it was absolutely vital. I would need to jump through major hoops for my nursing clinicals. Holiday gatherings would not count. 

We have easy access to testing, so that’s as good as I could do for optional events. Otherwise, we would just have to miss. 

[BlsdMama]

12 hours ago, Ottakee said:

I saw on the thread about the holidays various people mentioning quarantining for 14 days or asking family members to do so (by choice, not due to positive tests or known exposure).

Is it easy for many families to do this?

I work in education so unless we are remote learning, I can't easily do so.  One of my kids is in food service, one at an essential factory, and 2 at a grocery store. 

Quarantining all of us for 14 days in anticipation of an event/family visit is just not practical, esp as we all need our income to pay the bills.  Working from home is not an option for any of my kids and only an option for me if the schools shut down in our area.

Disclaimer....obviously a known exposure or positive test would have us quarantining.

Yes  and no.  We did quarantine.  Our teen quit her job for two months.  It just was what it was.  DH can work from home in his current role with difficulty.  His company has a pretty stringent quarantine policy.  If a household member becomes symptomatic, it is an automatic 24 days at home unless two negative tests are received.  He is salary so he would work from home and we would be unaffected.  We have two teens who have jobs - but there are no bills dependent on their income.  DD works at a nursing facility so if she were exposed, she absolutely could NOT work.  Two have college classes and several have other classes/extracurriculars.  They'd just have to stop for a bit.

[catz]

Yes, sure.  Honestly we're like 90-95% there since March.  My husband works full time at home.  Any recreation is outdoors.  We've gotten together with his dad and my mom who both live alone, outdoors.  We mostly order groceries, get curbside whenever possible.  We had to upgrade our wireless data at home to accommodate.  LOL.  I was in a dental office last week for an emergency for example of an exception.  They are taking excellent precautions there though.  

So I'm someone who said this on the other thread.  For our 2 living parents and our siblings, yes, they could all easily quarantine.  All of them are working at home or close to working at home.  I did say it a bit tongue in cheek though because I don't expect we will get together with larger groups this holiday season.  We will work something out to get together with my mom and my husband's father (and my MIL died in April after lock down).  I know my own sibling would never quarentine to get together with us and I suspect my husband's probably wouldn't either.

Edited September 7, 2020 by FuzzyCatz

[Tanaqui]

Now that we can easily get grocery delivery - yes. That's pretty much what we've been doing these past six months. We're about to have our first visit ever with anybody, and only because this woman is the ONLY person IRL I trust to have not let anybody in her family out of the house for the past six months.

Dogwalking might be a little tricky, but it's doable if I'm careful and mostly only go out at night.

[Tap]

If I took off work from my 2 jobs....yes.

[Sherry in OH]

Could we? yes. Easily? no.

My children could switch from blended to all-virtual school. They could not do scouts.  Dh already does most of his work from home and could find work-arounds for the remainder.  I could step back from volunteering.  

It would be doable for two weeks.  But, we would not be doing it for two weeks, we would be isolating for a minimum of four weeks - 14 days before the event and 14 after.*  I cannot think of any social event that is worth that. 

* We live a day's drive from our nearest relatives, a full day of flying from most.  Either we travel across state lines or relatives do.  Both the children's school and dh's employer require quarantine after traveling out-of-state or being in close contact with travelers.  

[Murphy101]

We could, sorta, but we wouldn’t for that bc I know that others wouldn’t actually do it and so we would likely not do the event. 

dh is working from home and we can order delivery for groceries. However, if we had to quarantine - 2 of my grown sons who live with us would lose their outside the house jobs.  They would not be willing to lose their jobs just to have a holiday dinner and I don’t blame them.

However, if we were actually Covid positive, they wouldn’t hesitate to quarantine.  They’d be frustrated and upset about it bc they are young adults trying to make a future separate from living with parents, which is completely understandable and commendable. But they would understand and not be angry or resentful to us for insisting on quarantine.

All my young adult children would lose their jobs if they had to quarantine and they would not be able to afford the added expense of delivery long term, one doesn’t have that option at all where he lives.  

[ktgrok]

5 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

That's what my SIL and BIL had.  They had results within a few hours.

My nearly adult kids (one at university, one at boarding school) are getting one of the saliva tests (which I believe are all still in large-sample research/clinical trial usage, not available to the public).

I'm pretty sure that if you got results that fast it isn't the PCR it is the antigen. But maybe I'm wrong?

[Pam in CT]

31 minutes ago, Ktgrok said:

I'm pretty sure that if you got results that fast it isn't the PCR it is the antigen. But maybe I'm wrong?

I'll ask - I thought she said it was the PCR (she did it before visiting a pretty immunocompromised friend, and knowing her I think she'd be too concerned about the false negative rate to trust the antigens.)  I'll ask.

[Guest]

It would be easy before Christmas because my fall semester ends before Thanksgiving and DH and DD are at home anyway. Before Thanksgiving, I would have to move my students who are currently in person to virtual. And, thinking about that, I may suggest that option to my students, who might want to limit exposure before seeing relatives, since I have some who are doing virtual school and only one or two activities outside the home a week. 

[kbutton]

11 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

We could arrange it, but I wouldn’t call it exactly easy as a voluntary measure. As a necessary one, yes.

I’d worry about making all those voluntary arrangements and then facing an exposure quarantine down the road, taxing the good will of others after doing so for fun.  (Which we recently did, but only for a few days until negative tests came back.).

This. DH works in healthcare.

We are contemplating holidays--we often don't get to see family at holidays due to work schedules, but COVID would likely make that easier this year. I am comfortable with us all being honest about our habits and hashing out what we're comfortable doing in the two weeks leading up to a visit vs. quarantining. 

 

[BlsdMama]

21 hours ago, square_25 said:

We did so before seeing our in-laws. It felt safer than getting a test due to the rate of false negatives and also because getting a test is by itself a potential exposure!

Do you all not have in-car test sites?  We never left our vehicle.  Your doctor puts in the order to the appropriate affilitated hospital.  They have a drive thru bay.  We've done this at one hospital (for two kiddos) and one clinic (for me) and then there is also the state run site for those without a doctor to write the script.  That said, to get a test, I'd have to say I was exposed or symptomatic.  Doesn't everyone have these restrictions? Getting a second test for the second negative is *very* difficult dependent on the doctor and the hospital.

[Ausmumof3]

I and the kids could be not dh

[KungFuPanda]

I've forgotten what not being quarantined feels like.  I think my social skills have atrophied.  At this point I'm resigned to "living underground" for a year.  2020 is a wash for us.  We'll see how 2021 shakes out.  Dd is teaching from home now, but if she returns to the classroom in January, she'll have to get her own place.  Ds is just to vulnerable to be exposed to public school cooties through his sister.

[freesia]

9 hours ago, square_25 said:

We probably do. It still seems like way more interaction with COVID than anything else I do, though, given how locked down we are...

I’m probably being irrational, I grant. I did think that a drive through side is the best way!

CVS has the type where you drive up and the test is delivered via one of those drawers ( like the old fashioned drive up banks). Then you self administer and put it back in the drawer. I think there’s very little risk particularly if you wear gloves.

Anyway, I know you didn’t need to, but there are some safe options in the NYC  area if you need them. 

[historically accurate]

No, we can't. I have a child who has medical appointments more often than every 2 weeks; it's daily therapy at this moment. When this therapy run is finished, DD and I (since I accompany her) will both be tested. It doesn't make sense right now since we are still going out daily as its hard to get tested here. Her appointments will probably be 2-3 times per week then. DH works mainly from home, but he has to go in at least 1x per week. One child has left the house probably less than 10 times over the past 6 months. 

[Syllieann]

DH goes to work every other week so he could not.  The rest of us could and in fact we have been doing so for the last week and a half in preparation for the kids going camping with their grandparents.

[mumto2]

Yes, I probably wouldn’t even need to have groceries deliver as I have been keeping a two week supply of shelf stable milk just in case.  Our life is already pretty limited and our family is over 1000 miles away so we won’t be for Christmas get together’s.

[LucyStoner]

If by quarantine you mean WITH my immediate family, yes.   In our situation, I was already self employed in a field that lends itself to online/working from home anyways.  I haven't seen most of my clients other than on Zoom/Teams/Skype since mid March.  My husband works FT in IT and they sent his entire team home to work back in March and at this point they aren't expecting to open up his department onsite until the spring of 2021 at the earliest.  Both sons are distance learning.  We live in a populated suburb with many options for same day food and supply delivery.   We also have the funds available to get 14 days of food and supplies on hand and not even need to get anything delivered if need be.  I know it's not realistic for most people though and that our ability to stay home is largely aided by other people not staying home.  

If by quarantine you mean solo, away from my family.  That would be difficult and only something we would do if there was a medical need.  We don't have a large home and so if one adult needed to quarantine fully, the other adult would have nowhere to sleep besides the living room.  It would also be a challenge to scaffold and support our sons (ASD) with their home learning without two parents to split up the work while also working at our jobs.  

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by LucyStoner

[dsmith]

Yes, very easily. We worked from home before all of this happened, and our son works with us. We have been getting grocery deliveries since the beginning of the pandemic. Except for dh going to church and the farmer's market on Sunday, as well as a rosary gathering on Tuesdays and picking up our mail from the UPS store after hours, we are home. My mil wants to visit people, and we occasionally let her have an outdoor visit with masks, but that's it. Two weeks of complete isolation would be nothing for us.