What to Do if a Family Member Tested Positive for Covid
(CNN)These days, it'due south much easier to contract the coronavirus every bit the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads worldwide. Equally people face this electric current reality, it's important to notation that the United states of america Centers for Disease Command and Prevention besides recently inverse its guidelines around isolation and quarantine. Many have questions most what to do if they or a family member ends up catching Covid-19.
What if a child tests positive — how should parents and guardians treat that child safely? What if a parent has Covid-19 but their children don't? How long should someone exist in isolation? When should people be tested? What if everyone in the family contracts Covid-19 — practice they need to be isolated from ane another?
To reply your questions, I spoke with 1 of our experts, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, who is an emergency doctor and professor of health policy and direction at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also writer of "Lifelines: A Doc's Journey in the Fight for Public Health," and the mom of two young children.
CNN: Y'all've talked a lot about the deviation between isolation and quarantine. What'south the difference and why is information technology important?
Dr. Leana Wen: There is a big difference, and it's important to distinguish the ii. The guidance is very unlike, depending on if you're in isolation versus quarantine. Isolation is what you lot do when you are diagnosed with Covid-nineteen. Quarantine is what you might take to do if you are exposed to Covid-19 but have non nonetheless been diagnosed. The CDC has very unlike guidelines for isolation versus quarantine, and so that's why the specific vocabulary is important.
CNN: A lot of families are facing situations where someone is testing positive. If i member of the family —say a parent — gets diagnosed with Covid-nineteen, what should they do next?
Wen: That person should immediately isolate from others. The person who was but diagnosed with Covid-19 should exist presumed to exist potentially infectious. Everybody else in the family should as well go tested immediately. It's possible that the person who tested positive was not the first person to contract Covid-19, and other members may also test positive.
CNN: What if everybody tests positive? Practice they need to isolate from 1 another?
Wen: If everyone has Covid-19, they practice not need to isolate from each other. That's because it's highly unlikely that they accept unlike strains of coronavirus; they probably all got the same strain from i some other, and they aren't going to reinfect each other so rapidly. The entire family, of course, should exist isolating from other people.
CNN: What if it'southward a child who tests positive, and everybody else is testing negative? Who's going to intendance for the child?
Wen: This is very difficult, especially if it'due south a younger child who can't treat themselves. I would wait at the circumstances of the household. Let'due south say that in that location are ii parents or main caregivers, and both are vaccinated, boosted and more often than not healthy. Allow'south say that there is some other child who is not vaccinated, and therefore at higher hazard for severe outcomes from Covid-19 compared with one who is vaccinated.
In that scenario, I'd recommend splitting upward the household and then that one parent cares for the child who has Covid-19 and the other 1 cares for the child who does not take it. The ii different "pods" should not interact with one another during the isolation period. If possible, they shouldn't share any indoor space. They should slumber in dissimilar rooms, non share the same bath, and not get together indoors at all during this time. The parent caring for the child with Covid-xix should wear a mask when with the child to effort to reduce the likelihood of getting infected themselves.
The state of affairs becomes more challenging if there is just one parent or caregiver. Ventilation — opening windows and doors when feasible — can assistance, every bit can very careful handwashing and masking.
CNN: Does isolation hateful that y'all must be inside the whole fourth dimension? Can you still leave and get fresh air?
Wen: Technically, isolation does mean that you accept to be inside and away from others. However, this is where y'all tin apply common sense. If you live in a house, townhouse or apartment where you don't have to pass whatsoever shared space to get fresh air, y'all could become outside. Please be careful, stay very well-distanced from others, and exercise not share indoor space with people. None of us wants to infect others inadvertently.
CNN: How long should someone be in isolation?
Wen: The CDC's new guidelines substantially shorten the isolation period from ten days to v days, with an additional five days wearing a mask. This means that you should stay fully isolated for the start five days. After that, you can become out — to work, to the grocery and and then forth — merely you should wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask when out in public. Don't go to settings where you volition exist maskless, such as restaurants.
When information technology comes to people in the same family, this guidance means you actually shouldn't have meals together or have other casual, maskless encounters with uninfected members of your family in the 10-day period. If families are in 2 pods, the two shouldn't mix for 10 days inside their firm.
CNN: If someone had symptoms on Monday, got tested on Wednesday and so got results back on Friday, when does the five-day clock start?
Wen: Monday. The v-24-hour interval clock starts when someone first starts getting symptoms. If someone is tested and they are asymptomatic but have a positive result, the 5-24-hour interval clock starts when they first got the test. If you lot are unsure — for case, if you are feeling a trivial rundown Dominicus just don't really have full symptoms until Tuesday — use the date that you lot are certain of the symptoms.
Call up that the count starts at day zip. Day one is the first full 24 hours afterward the onset of symptoms or later the positive exam.
CNN: When should you become tested over again?
Wen: The CDC is not recommending testing to go out of isolation. What they are proverb is that y'all tin take a rapid antigen test at day 5, but then if it's positive, you lot must keep isolating for another five days.
I disagree hither with the CDC. If yous accept rapid tests readily available, I think you can test starting solar day five. If it's negative on 24-hour interval five and negative the adjacent day (twenty-four hours six), I think information technology would exist reasonable to stop isolation. This could be crucial for families, for whom being separated from 1 another is a major inconvenience. Importantly, a PCR exam, while more accurate for initial diagnosis, is non the test to use after your diagnosis is already confirmed. That's because the PCR test is so sensitive that it picks up on small-scale fragments of virus, and people infected with Covid-19 could notwithstanding exist testing positive by PCR weeks later they are no longer infectious.
CNN: What about those who tested negative for Covid-19 initially? When should they get tested again?
Wen: The CDC recommends that those individuals exposed to someone with Covid-19 become tested no sooner than 5 days after their exposure. The agency further breaks this down into whether you are vaccinated and boosted, versus if you are not. It also considers those who had Covid-nineteen in the by 90 days to be the same as if they are vaccinated and boosted. If you are not, you need to quarantine until a negative examination result at least v days after and and then wear a mask for five more days in public. If y'all are, then you do not need to quarantine, but you should nonetheless become a test in v days.
Here's where I would add a bit more dash to the CDC guidance. First, if you have rapid tests readily available, I think it's reasonable to test family members every day. They may non exist cleared from quarantine until at least five days later, but if they finish upward testing positive sooner, it would change how family unit members interact with one some other. Perhaps the entire family is already exposed and will examination positive in a day or two, which eliminates the demand to separate one another.
Second, fifty-fifty though the CDC says that those exposed do non need to quarantine if they are up to engagement on vaccines, employers and schools may have dissimilar guidance. Make certain to cheque with them before sending your kids or yourself back to schoolhouse and work.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/health/family-covid-isolation-guidelines-wellness/index.html
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