Self-isolation and a niggling thought
Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 13:56 On Tuesday I received an NHS test and trace message. It read:
Simon, you have been identified as a contact of someone who has recently tested positive for Covid-19. You must now stay at home and self-isolate for 10 days from the date of your last contact with them.
The self-isolation period ends on Monday (January 11). Until then I’m not allowed - by law - to leave the house other than to ‘exercise’ in our back garden. (I think I’ll give that a miss.)
Today is the sixth day since contact took place and so far I don’t have any obvious symptoms.
Apparently they can appear up to 14 days after contact but normally it’s within four or five days, hence the Government has reduced the isolation period to ten days.
Fingers crossed, then, I won’t actually develop anything because the more I hear and read the more unpleasant it sounds.
Yesterday, for example, I read a rather distressing article – Inside the Covid ward (UnHerd) – that should be read by anyone who doubts the potential impact of Covid, especially if you’re my age (61) or older.
Furthermore, we have just been notified that the intensive care unit (ICU) at our local hospital is now at maximum capacity for Covid patients and intensive care patients (non-Covid) are now being moved to other hospitals in the south of England.
In addition, the larger (overflow) hospital in Cambridge is no longer accepting patients from the local hospital because it is currently acting as a 'specialist centre for the most critical Covid patients from London hospitals.'
Sure, there are many people who will contract Covid without ending up in intensive care struggling to breathe - and wishing they were dead - but it has convinced me that for the next few months it might be sensible to err even more on the side of caution.
That said, I know how lucky I am. I may be self-isolating but in the absence of any symptoms I can still work, read, watch the TV and listen to the radio.
Waitrose and Tesco deliveries are scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday so I won’t starve.
For villagers who are self-isolating, the local pub is also providing home deliveries including Sunday roasts.
There’s plenty of booze left over from Christmas, so no complaints there either.
It’s easy, in fact, to laugh it off, but a niggling thought remains. What if I do get Covid?
Stay safe and watch this space!!
Reader Comments (7)
Good thing you’re not a smoker!
Simon,
Look on the bright side, millions more people are surviving this virus than are succumbing to it, it all depends on your own immune system, remember contrary to what the media and government are intimating, people are not condemned to death if they do contract it they are not dropping in the street
If you disregard the paid for politically vested interests studies of the anti smoker industry, and look at all those done to date since covid began, you will see current smokers fare better than non smokers and former smokers.
So, it might not be a good thing that you are not a smoker.
Frankly, I believe we can all get it and all be affected by it but those with underlying health conditions - smoker or non smoker - will fare just as badly.
Hopefully not, Simon.
I can't currently think of anything having a worse nocebo effect than getting a contact warning.
“The nocebo effect is in fact an expectation about negative treatment outcomes,” explains health psychologist Andrea Evers of the University of Leiden in The Netherlands. Almost a polar opposite to the better-known placebo effect, it works through our negative assumptions and conditioning."
We deal with the nocebo effect several times a day.
In fact, these days cigarette packets are nothing but nocebo messages with matching images designed to make you feel ill.
Be brave and hope for the best.
Simon
Today is the 11th, how are you?
I’m fine, thank you! From midnight I am ‘allowed’ to leave the house. May wait until tomorrow morning!
I'm glad to hear it.
Yes, I'd leave it to the morning too.
It is supposed to be 2 degrees after midnight for us and we've only just got rid of the snow.