What Do You Do When a Family Member Test Positive for Covid-19
(CNN)These days, it's much easier to contract the coronavirus as the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads worldwide. As people face this current reality, information technology'south important to note that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recently changed its guidelines effectually isolation and quarantine. Many take questions about what to do if they or a family member ends upwardly catching Covid-nineteen.
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 be 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 respond your questions, I spoke with 1 of our experts, CNN Medical Annotator Dr. Leana Wen, who is an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute Schoolhouse of Public Health. She is also writer of "Lifelines: A Medico's Journey in the Fight for Public Health," and the mom of two young children.
CNN: You've talked a lot well-nigh the difference between isolation and quarantine. What'due south the departure and why is information technology of import?
Dr. Leana Wen: There is a big departure, and information technology'due south important to distinguish the two. The guidance is very different, depending on if y'all're in isolation versus quarantine. Isolation is what you do when y'all are diagnosed with Covid-xix. Quarantine is what you might have to do if y'all are exposed to Covid-19 simply accept not still been diagnosed. The CDC has very dissimilar guidelines for isolation versus quarantine, so that's why the specific vocabulary is important.
CNN: A lot of families are facing situations where someone is testing positive. If one fellow member of the family —say a parent — gets diagnosed with Covid-19, what should they do next?
Wen: That person should immediately isolate from others. The person who was just diagnosed with Covid-19 should be presumed to be potentially infectious. Everybody else in the family should also go tested immediately. It's possible that the person who tested positive was not the commencement person to contract Covid-19, and other members may besides test positive.
CNN: What if everybody tests positive? Do they demand to isolate from one some other?
Wen: If everyone has Covid-19, they do not need to isolate from each other. That's because it's highly unlikely that they have different strains of coronavirus; they probably all got the same strain from one another, and they aren't going to reinfect each other so quickly. The entire family, of course, should be isolating from other people.
CNN: What if it'south a child who tests positive, and everybody else is testing negative? Who'due south going to care for the kid?
Wen: This is very hard, especially if information technology's a younger child who can't care for themselves. I would await at the circumstances of the household. Let's say that in that location are two parents or primary caregivers, and both are vaccinated, boosted and more often than not healthy. Permit's say that there is some other child who is not vaccinated, and therefore at college risk for severe outcomes from Covid-xix compared with one who is vaccinated.
In that scenario, I'd recommend splitting upward the household so that one parent cares for the child who has Covid-xix and the other 1 cares for the kid who does not have information technology. The 2 different "pods" should not collaborate with one another during the isolation menstruum. If possible, they shouldn't share any indoor space. They should sleep in unlike rooms, non share the aforementioned bathroom, and not get together indoors at all during this time. The parent caring for the child with Covid-19 should article of clothing a mask when with the child to try to reduce the likelihood of getting infected themselves.
The situation becomes more than challenging if at that place is only one parent or caregiver. Ventilation — opening windows and doors when viable — can help, as tin very conscientious handwashing and masking.
CNN: Does isolation mean that you must exist inside the whole time? Can you withal go out and get fresh air?
Wen: Technically, isolation does mean that yous have to exist inside and abroad from others. However, this is where you can use common sense. If yous live in a house, townhouse or apartment where you don't accept to pass any shared space to go fresh air, yous could go outside. Delight be careful, stay very well-distanced from others, and practice non share indoor space with people. None of us wants to infect others inadvertently.
CNN: How long should someone be in isolation?
Wen: The CDC'south new guidelines essentially shorten the isolation period from 10 days to five days, with an additional 5 days wearing a mask. This means that you lot should stay fully isolated for the first v days. After that, you can go out — to work, to the grocery and so along — just you should wear a high-quality, well-plumbing equipment mask when out in public. Don't go to settings where you will exist maskless, such as restaurants.
When information technology comes to people in the aforementioned family unit, this guidance ways you really 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 two pods, the two shouldn't mix for 10 days within their house.
CNN: If someone had symptoms on Monday, got tested on Wednesday and then got results back on Friday, when does the five-twenty-four hour period clock start?
Wen: Monday. The five-day clock starts when someone kickoff starts getting symptoms. If someone is tested and they are asymptomatic but have a positive upshot, the five-day clock starts when they beginning got the exam. If yous are unsure — for instance, if you are feeling a little rundown Sun but don't really take full symptoms until Tuesday — apply the date that you are certain of the symptoms.
Remember that the count starts at day zero. Day ane is the first total 24 hours later on the onset of symptoms or after the positive test.
CNN: When should you get tested again?
Wen: The CDC is not recommending testing to get out of isolation. What they are saying is that you tin take a rapid antigen test at twenty-four hour period five, but then if it's positive, you lot must keep isolating for some other five days.
I disagree here with the CDC. If y'all accept rapid tests readily available, I think you can test starting day five. If it'due south negative on twenty-four hours five and negative the next day (day six), I think it would be reasonable to cease isolation. This could exist crucial for families, for whom beingness separated from one another is a major inconvenience. Importantly, a PCR test, while more than authentic for initial diagnosis, is non the examination to use after your diagnosis is already confirmed. That's because the PCR examination is so sensitive that information technology picks up on small fragments of virus, and people infected with Covid-nineteen could still be testing positive by PCR weeks after they are no longer infectious.
CNN: What nigh those who tested negative for Covid-xix initially? When should they get tested over again?
Wen: The CDC recommends that those individuals exposed to someone with Covid-nineteen get tested no sooner than five days after their exposure. The agency further breaks this downward into whether yous are vaccinated and boosted, versus if you are not. It besides considers those who had Covid-19 in the past 90 days to exist the same equally if they are vaccinated and additional. If you are not, you demand to quarantine until a negative exam result at least five days afterwards so wear a mask for five more than days in public. If you lot are, then yous do not need to quarantine, but you should still get a test in five days.
Here's where I would add together a fleck more dash to the CDC guidance. Beginning, if you lot have rapid tests readily available, I call back it's reasonable to examination family members every day. They may not exist cleared from quarantine until at least five days later, but if they end upwards testing positive sooner, it would change how family members interact with one another. Mayhap the entire family is already exposed and will examination positive in a day or two, which eliminates the need to separate i another.
2d, even though the CDC says that those exposed do not demand to quarantine if they are up to date on vaccines, employers and schools may have different guidance. Make certain to check with them before sending your kids or yourself back to schoolhouse and piece of work.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/health/family-covid-isolation-guidelines-wellness/index.html
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