COVID Guidelines Changing (@ mentioned in replies)

[StrawberryBlondie]

Feb 13, 2024 13:49:59 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Feb 13, 2024 13:18:00 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

I don't think "fever free for 24 hrs" means "send obviously sick people to school if they don't have a fever." I've never interpreted it that way for school or daycare for other illnesses and don't know anyone who did either - it means if you're otherwise fine, you can come back when you've been fever free for 24 hrs.

But if you test positive for Covid you are “obviously sick” even if you may never or only briefly get a fever or have physical symptoms. That’s why the recommendations for a positive test were a blanket 10 then 5 day isolation periods followed by masking in public past that.

As the proposed recommendations read now, you can test positive and if you think you feel okay the CDC isn’t encouraging you to stay home or mask at all. Test positive at lunch, return to work or school that day as long as you feel “fine”. Not only are you spreading it around but there is evidence that rest is one of the best and easiest ways to avoid long covid after infection even if it is mild or asymptomatic.

Since businesses generally follow the CDC’s guidelines it’s likely it will put pressure on people to return to work with a positive test if they don’t have outward signs of illness.

I guess we will see the exact wording when it’s released. I see a lot of backlash online so maybe they will walk it back or clarify.

I don't think we actually really disagree with each other here, but to clarify, by "obviously sick" I'm referring to symptoms, not diagnosis.

I just don't think as a practical matter it's going to change much. If you feel like garbage, you should stay home, not go to school (for example) jusr because you aren't testing positive for covid or because you don't have a fever.

ETA: if you genuinely feel fine, you're not going to be testing for covid anyway, so this scenario of returning to work the day you have a positive covid test doesn't feel like something that's going to happen.

[jaylea]

Everything went bust the same time the insurance companies and government decided we were on our own to pay for tests ($23 for two x family of 4 x multiple tests = far too much money for many families), but still requiring people to be home, and also not requiring employers to respect that.

That’s when many people just stopped testing.

We still test, but every time are on day 4 of symptoms before a positive. So in the meantime, despite testing, life goes on because we can’t all isolate every time we have a cold.

It’s a cluster. We’ve currently got a Covid case in our house and didn’t know that it was Covid til the day 4 test finally told us. And now I’ve spent $150 this week on more tests and the other 3 of us are still negative on day 8.

My last bout of Covid came from a mandatory meeting, at which more than a dozen of us got Covid from patient zero who I clocked with his dry cough on day 1 of the two day meeting. He no-showed day 2, and when people started getting sketched out and trying to bail we were told the meetings and events in the evening were mandatory. I came home and missed my anniversary, my birthday, my favorite band in concert and a weekend away with my husband because the guy assumed he had a cold and no one ever communicated it out.

Sorry. I guess I’m still touchy. 😂

But they are doing everything they can to disincentivize responsible covid behavior so at this point they need to either have protections and fee tests in place, or lift everything. Because the in-between has created two schools of thought - the responsible and penalized, and the “if I don’t test, I don’t have it!”

[tacokick]

Feb 13, 2024 14:06:41 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

ETA: if you genuinely feel fine, you're not going to be testing for covid anyway, so this scenario of returning to work the day you have a positive covid test doesn't feel like something that's going to happen.

People are still testing for a variety of reasons even if they feel fine. Through work and volunteering I know several people over the past few months who who didn’t have any symptoms and tested positive. They were tested by the hospital when undergoing some other medical treatment, decided to test before visiting high risk relatives, coming home from travel and (most often) after known exposures and/or Covid in the family home.

Of course these are largely people who do care about Covid and would probably stay home symptoms or no symptoms with a positive test but the CDC pushing the message that you have to have symptoms to take sick leave seems irresponsible when we know what we know about Covid. Hopefully they will work on that wording!

[sonrisa]

Feb 13, 2024 10:14:10 GMT -5 acr said:

How interesting. I never had fever either time I had covid & my symptoms were mild, but seems like there is probably a range of ways to interpret "mild & improving symptoms" as a barometer.

and don’t forget, for COVID classification purposes, anything that didn’t land in the hospital is labeled mild. Wracked with pain, fever, chills, nausea, splitting headaches, coughing, can barely get out of bed to get to the bathroom for exhaustion, breathing problems that resolve with medication rather than an inpatient stay? No worries. You have mild COVID.

[audette]

Guh. This combined with all the RTO stuff going on right now, and I'm... unhappy about it.


I mean, I tend to err on the side of caution... I'm currently WFH this week, because DH had an extended Covid exposure over the weekend (roadtrip with buddies, one buddy tested positive sunday night). DH is doing his best to isolate from the rest of the household, at least, but we all know at-home isolation isn't always perfect.

(we're going to ignore that this is also a convenient excuse to work from home for a bit longer...)

[curbsideprophet]

Feb 13, 2024 12:36:19 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

Flu and RSV absolutely can and do spread asymptomatically, pre-symptomatically, or while symptoms are 'mild and improving' too (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2646474/). The 24-hour fever/vomit/diarrhea free rule was always one of expedience, not because illnesses are magically not contagious at that point. Stomach bugs can be spread via fecal transmission for weeks after recovery from symptoms. Let's not forget that the initial Omicron wave still spiked tremendously in areas like mine when mask mandates and isolation guidelines were in place with wide compliance. And conversely, transmission did not worsen when those things were relaxed.

Reducing long covid, hospitalization, and death by promoting vaccination is both a more achievable goalpost for the CDC and one that has far more concrete evidence behind it than trying to prevent transmission.

Which is why we should be cleaning the air! No one really wants flu or rsv either. However, treating them all the same ignores the impacts after the initial infection. Hospitalization and death are not the only negative outcomes. I am unsure of the long term impacts of flu and rsv, maybe we should be more concerned about those things than we are currently are. 

Some potential impacts of covid are known (Heart issues, neurological issues, digestive issues). Real long term impacts are obviously not known because it is too new to know.

List of Long Covid list of issues from the CDC.

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html

Consider yourself lucky if transmission did not increase where you live when mask mandates were dropped. My area has not ever gone back down to the low levels seen in March of 22. We got close in June of 23, but still not as low as when everyone was masking. This current wave is now looking worse than Omicron. Have you actually looked at the wastewater data for your area to know that transmission did not increase?

Here is the wastewater dashboard for NC. covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/wastewater-monitoring

Many of the sites show the pattern I described above.

Currently the only way to prevent long covid is to prevent covid in the first place. Vaccination may help, but there are definitely people who have been vaccinated with long covid. We can not vax our way out of this with the current vaccines.

[wanderingback]

Feb 13, 2024 13:25:37 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Feb 13, 2024 13:17:59 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Just to clarify, you can be asymptomatic with the flu and transmit just the same as covid.

I’m not disagreeing with what people are saying in this thread but did want to point that out since people like to compare the flu and covid and in that aspect they are the same in that you can have no symptoms and it can be transmitted (seems like a few people have mentioned this).

That is true! It’s disappointing that the CDC keeps making that comparison so it is constantly in the conversation.

I don’t really mind the comparison so much since more people are familiar with the flu. I just wanted to correct the false info that the flu always has symptoms and is only transmitted with symptoms.

[tacokick]

Feb 13, 2024 22:23:53 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Feb 13, 2024 13:25:37 GMT -5 tacokick said:

That is true! It’s disappointing that the CDC keeps making that comparison so it is constantly in the conversation.

I don’t really mind the comparison so much since more people are familiar with the flu. I just wanted to correct the false info that the flu always has symptoms and is only transmitted with symptoms.

I didn’t catch anyone saying that but thanks for the reminders! It’s always good to stay on top of things.

[turkturkleton]

Feb 14, 2024 0:39:28 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Feb 13, 2024 22:23:53 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

I don’t really mind the comparison so much since more people are familiar with the flu. I just wanted to correct the false info that the flu always has symptoms and is only transmitted with symptoms.

I didn’t catch anyone saying that but thanks for the reminders! It’s always good to stay on top of things.

You're the one that said it.

Feb 13, 2024 11:54:02 GMT -5 tacokick said:

The problem is that COVID is not the flu where you get obvious symptoms at some point. Plenty of people are testing positive and are contagious and do not have obvious (or any) symptoms like you would with the flu. We have known for years that asymptomatic COVID is contagious and can lead to long COVID. It is much more dangerous than the flu.

[karinothing]

Feb 13, 2024 10:51:54 GMT -5 DotAndBuzz said:

Feb 13, 2024 10:47:15 GMT -5 hermione said:

I edited the title for @.

I do wonder what this means for those without fevers. Would I have just sent my 10yo to school after one day? Her symptoms were improving and she never had a fever. I’m interested to see what they say about masks.

My kid just had it last week. SO SICK, and never spiked a fever. So should I have just....sent her to school? I mean, she powered through for 3 days, masked, because she kept testing negative, and had legit assignments/meetings she didn't want to miss, but COME ON. Had the faintest of faint positive tests the evening of day 3. 

I mean if your kid was so sick shouldn't they be home? You don't need a fever to stay home. If you don't feel well you can stay home with or without a fever (and should stay home). 

[pixy0stix]

Feb 14, 2024 6:16:23 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Feb 13, 2024 10:51:54 GMT -5 DotAndBuzz said:

My kid just had it last week. SO SICK, and never spiked a fever. So should I have just....sent her to school? I mean, she powered through for 3 days, masked, because she kept testing negative, and had legit assignments/meetings she didn't want to miss, but COME ON. Had the faintest of faint positive tests the evening of day 3. 

I mean if your kid was so sick shouldn't they be home? You don't need a fever to stay home. If you don't feel well you can stay home with or without a fever (and should stay home). 

Yeah, why the fuck was she at school if she was this sick? We cry and wring hands that capitalism is killing us, but then let our kids kill themselves for school assignments that don't matter. We're the problem here.

[wanderingback]

Feb 14, 2024 5:06:35 GMT -5 turkturkleton said:

Feb 14, 2024 0:39:28 GMT -5 tacokick said:

I didn’t catch anyone saying that but thanks for the reminders! It’s always good to stay on top of things.

You're the one that said it.

Feb 13, 2024 11:54:02 GMT -5 tacokick said:

The problem is that COVID is not the flu where you get obvious symptoms at some point. Plenty of people are testing positive and are contagious and do not have obvious (or any) symptoms like you would with the flu. We have known for years that asymptomatic COVID is contagious and can lead to long COVID. It is much more dangerous than the flu.

Thank you for confirming I was not losing my mind!

[tacokick]

Feb 14, 2024 5:06:35 GMT -5 turkturkleton said:

Feb 14, 2024 0:39:28 GMT -5 tacokick said:

I didn’t catch anyone saying that but thanks for the reminders! It’s always good to stay on top of things.

You're the one that said it.

Feb 13, 2024 11:54:02 GMT -5 tacokick said:

The problem is that COVID is not the flu where you get obvious symptoms at some point. Plenty of people are testing positive and are contagious and do not have obvious (or any) symptoms like you would with the flu. We have known for years that asymptomatic COVID is contagious and can lead to long COVID. It is much more dangerous than the flu.

Oh, no! My wording was poor, I was trying to paraphrase something and forgot the link. Next time I’ll try to be more explicit and exact! Good looking out!

ETA: The article was about how people know flu symptoms and are good about staying home if they know they’re sick but don’t keep up to date on Covid symptoms which change with the mutations. If I find the link again, I’ll add it.

[DotAndBuzz]

Feb 14, 2024 9:03:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Feb 14, 2024 6:16:23 GMT -5 karinothing said:

I mean if your kid was so sick shouldn't they be home? You don't need a fever to stay home. If you don't feel well you can stay home with or without a fever (and should stay home). 

Yeah, why the fuck was she at school if she was this sick? We cry and wring hands that capitalism is killing us, but then let our kids kill themselves for school assignments that don't matter. We're the problem here.

Because this year has been absolute shit/extremely difficult for her, in general, for a lot of other reasons, and she's missed a lot of school already. She could stay home and fall further behind, and miss even more appointments that she'd scheduled with her teachers to try to catch up, or she could go, take the tests, have the meetings, and be done. I offered to let her stay home, she made the decision to go, so she masked and went. And in 10th grade, there comes a point where yes, some assignments do matter, especially if you're already trying to play catch up. 

Both options sucked, and I left it up to her. 

[pixy0stix]

Feb 14, 2024 10:19:02 GMT -5 DotAndBuzz said:

Feb 14, 2024 9:03:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Yeah, why the fuck was she at school if she was this sick? We cry and wring hands that capitalism is killing us, but then let our kids kill themselves for school assignments that don't matter. We're the problem here.

Because this year has been absolute shit/extremely difficult for her, in general, for a lot of other reasons, and she's missed a lot of school already. She could stay home and fall further behind, and miss even more appointments that she'd scheduled with her teachers to try to catch up, or she could go, take the tests, have the meetings, and be done. I offered to let her stay home, she made the decision to go, so she masked and went. And in 10th grade, there comes a point where yes, some assignments do matter, especially if you're already trying to play catch up. 

Both options sucked, and I left it up to her. 

Right, because a 15 yo can make smart decisions about not spreading covid, or other illnesses, because we're reinforcing that we "push through and get things done even while sick".

And really it's not just you. This is how our society operates. It's a gold plated example. My personal short term gain for something that ultimately doesn't matter is more important than my long term health. Walla - we have the CDC decision.

[noodleoo]

Feb 14, 2024 10:19:02 GMT -5 DotAndBuzz said:

Feb 14, 2024 9:03:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Yeah, why the fuck was she at school if she was this sick? We cry and wring hands that capitalism is killing us, but then let our kids kill themselves for school assignments that don't matter. We're the problem here.

Because this year has been absolute shit/extremely difficult for her, in general, for a lot of other reasons, and she's missed a lot of school already. She could stay home and fall further behind, and miss even more appointments that she'd scheduled with her teachers to try to catch up, or she could go, take the tests, have the meetings, and be done. I offered to let her stay home, she made the decision to go, so she masked and went. And in 10th grade, there comes a point where yes, some assignments do matter, especially if you're already trying to play catch up. 

Both options sucked, and I left it up to her. 

Ok but you are proving the point that the isolation requirements aren't working anymore.  Your kid had Covid and was sick for 3 days and went to school anyway because she didn't test positive.  She was at peak contagiousness and probably spreading Covid because we know masks aren't 100%.   Requiring isolation after that isn't really going to help stop spread much (studies show you most are contagious the first few days of infection).  And the isolation requirements would not (did not) keep your contagious kid home.  You chose to send her to school while she was sick because missing all that work is a hardship.  So why should other kids be forced to stay home when they aren't feeling sick and have that same hardship of missed school?

[archiethedragon]

Feb 14, 2024 10:48:43 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Feb 14, 2024 10:19:02 GMT -5 DotAndBuzz said:

Because this year has been absolute shit/extremely difficult for her, in general, for a lot of other reasons, and she's missed a lot of school already. She could stay home and fall further behind, and miss even more appointments that she'd scheduled with her teachers to try to catch up, or she could go, take the tests, have the meetings, and be done. I offered to let her stay home, she made the decision to go, so she masked and went. And in 10th grade, there comes a point where yes, some assignments do matter, especially if you're already trying to play catch up. 

Both options sucked, and I left it up to her. 

Right, because a 15 yo can make smart decisions about not spreading covid, or other illnesses, because we're reinforcing that we "push through and get things done even while sick".

And really it's not just you. This is how our society operates. It's a gold plated example. My personal short term gain for something that ultimately doesn't matter is more important than my long term health. Walla - we have the CDC decision.

If you zoom far enough out then ultimately nothing matters.  We are going to be extinct in a a few hundred thousand years, or sooner.  And until then we will suffer through existence.    Why not do a few 10th grade homework assignments until we get there? 

[pixy0stix]

Feb 14, 2024 11:17:47 GMT -5 archiethedragon said:

Feb 14, 2024 10:48:43 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Right, because a 15 yo can make smart decisions about not spreading covid, or other illnesses, because we're reinforcing that we "push through and get things done even while sick".

And really it's not just you. This is how our society operates. It's a gold plated example. My personal short term gain for something that ultimately doesn't matter is more important than my long term health. Walla - we have the CDC decision.

If you zoom far enough out then ultimately nothing matters.  We are going to be extinct in a a few hundred thousand years, or sooner.  And until then we will suffer through existence.    Why not do a few 10th grade homework assignments until we get there? 

Eh, we've got maybe 100 years max before our environment wipes us out. So why are we working so hard?

[audette]

Grand-boss asked us to send in questions about the RTO topic, so she can address them in the next monthly staff meeting.


I asked about Covid guidelines, and mentioned it is currently very easy to isolate and quarantine after exposure, because our WFH policy is quite generous. But the RTO mandate will make that more challenging. So clarifying the current company Covid guidelines would be helpful.


She said she would look into it, but she was fairly certain that we have no covid guidelines at the company anymore. And then said if someone is unwell she would "recommend they stay home".



So, yeah. Very unhappy that we are not being clearer at my company with the expectation that folks stay home when they are sick. It's not even a "should", it's a "recommend"...



This is why illnesses spread. Covid, flu, rsv, etc. Because employers still want you to be productive, even when you are sick.