I'm full of Covid questions these days - testing strategy going forward???

[mlktwins]

DS2 tested positive Monday (symptoms started Sunday I'm pretty sure).  Tested him again yesterday and he is still positive, but took 10 minutes instead of 2 seconds like the first one.  How often would you test the positive patient?  These tests aren't cheap and add up quickly, but will do what is needed.

The rest of us are still negative.  I have tested DS1 daily since Monday.  I have tested each day also except yesterday.  DH tested early in the week and again today.  How often should we keep testing?  

DS2 will continue to isolate until 2 negative tests and will probably mask a bit longer after that.

The rest of us are masking except for while sleeping and I am not masking while in my office with the door closed.

 

[Ali in OR]

I was conserving tests, especially after dh starting using them to make sure he was safe to go to church and work. So I tested every other day and not before day 8. But once it was negative it was negative--I did not test again after 1 negative. Maybe I would have if I had used Paxlovid, but I spent days watching the test get better and better, so I don't think a positive after a negative is likely. Maybe if I had tested negative unbelievably quickly, but 12 days was long enough!

[HomeAgain]

In your case, I'd be testing the family every 3-4 days OR before going out in public. 

I wouldn't test ds2 again until Monday, but that's just me.  I'd keep everyone in this weekend and keep up with masking, but I'd take it as kind of a Shrodinger experiment - assume everyone is possibly affected and keep up precautions as you wait it out.

[lmrich]

For your DS with Covid, I would only test if his symptoms are gone. 

And (no means an expert) I would only test family members like every two or three days if they are symptom free (obviously test after symptoms appear -but wait 24 hours) and isolating from the outside world. Unless you have lots of free tests about to expire, I don't see the point in wasting them. Just FYY - it took both my dh and I five full days to test positive after exposure. We started feeling sick but tested negative and then 24 hours later positive. I had it first but was sick longer and took the full two weeks to have a negative test. 

[mlktwins]

24 minutes ago, lmrich said:

For your DS with Covid, I would only test if his symptoms are gone. 

And (no means an expert) I would only test family members like every two or three days if they are symptom free (obviously test after symptoms appear -but wait 24 hours) and isolating from the outside world. Unless you have lots of free tests about to expire, I don't see the point in wasting them. Just FYY - it took both my dh and I five full days to test positive after exposure. We started feeling sick but tested negative and then 24 hours later positive. I had it first but was sick longer and took the full two weeks to have a negative test. 

His symptoms are pretty much gone, but he still tested positive yesterday.  He does have tics and one of them is a cough so sometimes hard to tell.  

[AmandaVT]

I have a shelf full of tests from school, so I'm having DH test daily. I'm not bothering to have DS or I test until tomorrow at the earliest - that'll be 5 days since DH tested positive. DH tested negative on a rapid and then positive on the LAMP test a few hours later. He only tested positive on the rapid on day 3 of symptoms, so as much as I'd like to know, the rapids just aren't sensitive enough for me to use unless I know one of us is positive. 

We're masking when I'm in the same room as him, or if I'm using the bathroom (we only have one), but that's it. DH isn't masking when he's alone in the bedroom. Yesterday, he sat and napped in the shade for a bit outside and he didn't mask out there either. I was more than 10ft from him and made sure to stay upwind! 

[mommyoffive]

I would probably test your ds again Sat to see if he could do the swim meet. 

Did you order all the free tests from the gov?  And are you getting the tests from your health insurance that you can pick up?    I would probably go with the mindset that you guys have covid and I would test if I needed to go out or if I had symptoms.   But I probably wouldn't test the rest of the family other than those reasons. 

[Farrar]

I would not bank on a negative test until at least 10+ days post symptoms. I have yet to hear from anyone in the BA.5 era who has gotten a negative RAT before day 9.

[SKL]

I wouldn't re-test after a positive test.

I would assume everyone in the house had Covid within the same week as the person who tested positive.  But if someone needs to go somewhere that requires being Covid-free, and that person has been feeling well and gone at least 5 days since exposure to everyone else, then I'd rely on a negative Covid test for that person.

Well, unless some of the household members have had a pretty recent case or shot.  But even then, I'd be careful about going around vulnerable people after a known exposure.

[cintinative]

 

FYI--you might have missed my other thread, but if you haven't requested all of your free tests from the USPS you should go ahead and do that. Also, my insurance covers 8 rapid tests a month. I had to order them through CVS. So it's worth it to check on that. 

 

[Farrar]

I will say - management kept other members of my family from getting it. So it's possible. Depends. You have to be super dogmatic about masking though. So I wouldn't make that assumption. No one was allowed to unmask without a negative test here and we never assumed everyone already had it. Of course, it could have easily gone the other way. Just saying... if no one else is testing positive or symptomatic, I wouldn't make that assumption that everyone has it.

[freesia]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

I would not bank on a negative test until at least 10+ days post symptoms. I have yet to hear from anyone in the BA.5 era who has gotten a negative RAT before day 9.

This is making me wonder if this is one of the reasons it’s spreading so much. I was reading that only 17 percent of people are/were still positive after day 5 which is why isolation ended at that point but with masking just in case. Dd was fully out of isolation on day 5 in British Columbia.  I just tested ds 17, who is on day 7 and he got an immediate positive. It feels discouraging. If this strain is contagious longer like the original, then it’s no wonder it’s everywhere right now. 

[mlktwins]

16 minutes ago, freesia said:

This is making me wonder if this is one of the reasons it’s spreading so much. I was reading that only 17 percent of people are/were still positive after day 5 which is why isolation ended at that point but with masking just in case. Dd was fully out of isolation on day 5 in British Columbia.  I just tested ds 17, who is on day 7 and he got an immediate positive. It feels discouraging. If this strain is contagious longer like the original, then it’s no wonder it’s everywhere right now. 

CDC guidance doesn’t mention testing to get out of isolation.  Just as long as symptoms are improving you don’t have to isolate, but should mask.

The thing my kid cares about is tomorrow and Sunday.  He technically could go per the guidelines, but he knows he is still positive.  He wouldn’t feel right about it.  We have nothing on the calendar for over a week starting Monday.

[scholastica]

You can test positive and no longer be contagious. That’s the reason for the 10 day guideline. It can still pick up particles of virus, but he wouldn’t be shedding anything that could infect anyone. Use the CDC calculator online and go forth confidently according to what it tells you.

[Farrar]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

This is making me wonder if this is one of the reasons it’s spreading so much. I was reading that only 17 percent of people are/were still positive after day 5 which is why isolation ended at that point but with masking just in case. Dd was fully out of isolation on day 5 in British Columbia.  I just tested ds 17, who is on day 7 and he got an immediate positive. It feels discouraging. If this strain is contagious longer like the original, then it’s no wonder it’s everywhere right now. 

I absolutely have concluded that.

I know about how you can test positive but not be actually contagious. But the testing about that happened mostly before BA.5. I think something has changed. Plus, even if you are testing positive after day 5 - one study I read about showed that 50% of those testing positive between day 5-10 WERE still contagious. If nearly everyone with BA.5 is still testing positive, that's still a lot of people who are still contagious spreading the virus when they think they're over it. That study also found that nearly no one still testing positive after day 10 was actually still contagious. But... I don't trust that something hasn't changed.

[cintinative]

2 hours ago, scholastica said:

You can test positive and no longer be contagious. That’s the reason for the 10 day guideline. It can still pick up particles of virus, but he wouldn’t be shedding anything that could infect anyone. Use the CDC calculator online and go forth confidently according to what it tells you.

Do you have a source for this? I thought it was a 10 day guideline based on a broad range of expected length of illness--in other words, a median.

[rebcoola]

After day 5 every couple of days. Oldest tested negative yesterday which was day 16 from her first symptoms.  I tested negative today after 12 days of symptoms. 

[KSera]

2 hours ago, scholastica said:

You can test positive and no longer be contagious. That’s the reason for the 10 day guideline. It can still pick up particles of virus, but he wouldn’t be shedding anything that could infect anyone. Use the CDC calculator online and go forth confidently according to what it tells you.

I disagree on the CDC guidance allowing one to go forth confidently, because the calculator will tell him he can go out after day five, with no mention of testing. If he knows he’s still testing positive, particularly if it’s in the first 10 days, he’s likely to still be contagious. The correlation between rapid test positivity and contagiousness has been strong.

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

Do you have a source for this? I thought it was a 10 day guideline based on a broad range of expected length of illness--in other words, a median.

According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine-isolation-background.html  there is an average period of infectiousness and risk of transmission between 2-3 days before and 8 days after symptom onset.   So, while the CDC guidelines are based on an average, 10 days is not the average; the median would be lower than 10 days.  

[cintinative]

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine-isolation-background.html  there is an average period of infectiousness and risk of transmission between 2-3 days before and 8 days after symptom onset.   So, while the CDC guidelines are based on an average, 10 days is not the average; the median would be lower than 10 days.  

From the website:  The significance of a positive or negative antigen test late in the course of illness is less clear; while a positive antigen test likely means a person has residual transmissible virus and can potentially infect others, a negative antigen test does not necessarily indicate the absence of transmissible virus. As such, regardless of the test result, wearing a well-fitting mask is still recommended.

So to me, this reads that you can't be sure that you should not mask at 10 days if you test positive from a home-based test. 

[scholastica]

6 hours ago, KSera said:

I disagree on the CDC guidance allowing one to go forth confidently, because the calculator will tell him he can go out after day five, with no mention of testing. If he knows he’s still testing positive, particularly if it’s in the first 10 days, he’s likely to still be contagious. The correlation between rapid test positivity and contagiousness has been strong.

If an individual has access to a test and wants to test, the best approach is to use an antigen test¹ towards the end of the 5-day isolation period. Collect the test sample only if you are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication and your other symptoms have improved (loss of taste and smell may persist for weeks or months after recovery and need not delay the end of isolation). If your test result is positive, you should continue to isolate until day 10. If your test result is negative, you can end isolation, but continue to wear a well-fitting mask around others at home and in public until day 10. Follow additional recommendations for masking and avoiding travel as described above.
 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html?s_cid=10493:covid vaccine:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21

[mlktwins]

DS1 is 2nd man down 😔.  Faint line this morning.  He was heading to swim meet so it is good it showed up today.  He had tested 6 times this week (since Monday) - all negative.  I am going to wait a couple of days to retest me and DH.  After tomorrow evening, we are all home with nothing on the calendar until August 9th.  We just started our downtime 2 days early 😔.

And...just so people know how everyone can have different symptoms, DS2 had a cough (but that is a tic for him also) on Sunday, congestion/runny nose Monday (tested strong positive), sneezing Tuesday and was his worst day, and from Thursday on you wouldn't think he was sick.

DS2 was good all week, but started sneezing last night.  Slight runny nose.  No cough or anything else.  For sure negative last night and faint positive this morning.

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful input.  I will post when we show up negative as I am curious if we go 10 days or not.

[mlktwins]

DS2 first tested negative last Monday.  Still a strong positive today (Sunday).

[Arcadia]

On 7/30/2022 at 2:26 AM, mlktwins said:

 

And...just so people know how everyone can have different symptoms, DS2 had a cough (but that is a tic for him also) on Sunday, congestion/runny nose Monday (tested strong positive), sneezing Tuesday and was his worst day, and from Thursday on you wouldn't think he was sick.

My 79 year old dad only had a mild cough as the symptom throughout. He use the disposable mask when outdoors and stay alone so no idea where he caught the virus. I told him my friends staying in his region are testing positive for 10 to 12 days so he used up his tests closer to the 10 day mark. Was finally negative on day 11.

I had nosebleeds from rapid tests. My brother said it is rather common when doing rapid tests often for school or work. I ended up resorting to applying aquaphor after each nasal swab to reduce bleeding.