The first three day after someone is infected by COVID-19 they are the most infectious. While the patient has symptoms, they are still infectious. A person is considered infectious for 10 days after the onset of symptoms, or they test positive. Today is the last of five days that our house guest will be quarantined in the guest bedroom. Tonight everyone in the house will take a COVID home test and hopefully we will all test negative. For the past 5 days I have been wearing a KN-95 mask held in place by the cloth mask Pam made for me in the first weeks of the pandemic. The home made cloth mask has certainly gotten plenty of use. We have taken every caution imaginable to keep the virus contained to a confined space. Our house guest is young, and an athlete, so thankfully symptoms have been mild. Hopefully the illness has run it’s course.
I got my second booster shot several months ago because I wanted to be ready for a possible BA5 surge. You would think that would protect me for any possible infection, but I recently read an article that the BA5 variant can re-infect you despite any previous infection, or like myself, recent vaccination. The article pointed out that a vaccination might only protect against infection for as little as 28 days. Oddly enough, that 28 day grace period ran out two days ago. The vaccine does however protect against serious illness and or possible death.
So this family is a test study in the efficacy of wearing masks and quarantining. The quarantine wasn’t text book perfect since the guest bedroom didn’t have an attached bathroom. But our patient was good about staying masked when going to the bathroom. Last night our patient lounged outside on the back porch in the hammock. As an added precaution, I kept windows closed in the bedroom I was sleeping in, since the windows open out to the back patio. I also realized that I could close the air duct in the bedroom which cut down potentially virus filled air circulation. A towel was also shoved up under the gap below the door. People who get infected with COVID-19 can be sick for 3 days to a month.
It will be so nice to finally relax a bit if we all test negative. During the next 5 days of a recovery period, Our house guest will once again be able to go to work and wander freely. We will stay masked whenever we are in the same room, and we will still eat in our separate rooms for an additional 5 days, so the isolation period is really only half over. It will truly be a miracle if we have dodged this close call with COVID.
We all tested negative.