Have you had contact with a corona-positive person? This is the best you can do
Good question! In this section PlusOnline searches for answers to pressing questions. This time: I have no corona complaints, but according to the rules I still have to quarantine. Is that really necessary?
You visited a friend who at the time had no cold symptoms. However, a few days later it appears that she has tested positive for the corona virus. You have no complaints (yet). What now? Should you go into quarantine?
Contact with infected person
The answer is yes. Quarantine is a precaution. It is important that you stay at home and ‘quarantine’ for ten days if you have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for corona. ‘Close contact’ is when you have been in someone’s presence for more than 15 minutes and less than a meter and a half away. In addition, it is necessary to go into quarantine if someone in your household has tested positive, if you have been to a country/territory that has been classified as risk area or if you received a notification via the app Corona Detector.
Incubation period
The period between the moment that you become infected and that you develop symptoms is called the incubation period. Are you infected with the coronavirus? Then it usually takes five to six days before you get symptoms. The incubation period of the virus is between two and fourteen days. The source and contact research of the GGD shows that 99 percent of the contacts who get complaints, this happens within ten days after the last contact. Therefore, the quarantine time is ten days. Do you not adhere to the in those ten days? quarantine rules, then you can (unnoticed) infect others and thus spread the disease.
Do you still get complaints? Get tested
If you suddenly get corona complaints, the urgent advice is to let you go to test. A test only makes sense if you actually have complaints, because otherwise the result can be unreliable. If you do this too early, there is a chance that a test has not yet picked up the virus because there are still too few virus particles in the nose and throat. (Soon it will be possible for specific target groups to to be tested without complaints due to a significant expansion of test capacity.)
Have you been tested? Stay at home until you have the results of the test. If, in addition to mild corona complaints, you also have a fever (38 degrees Celsius or higher) and/or suffer from shortness of breath, your housemates should also stay at home. If the result is negative, you no longer have to quarantine.
After the quarantine
After the quarantine period you are in principle ‘free’ again to go where you want. It remains important that you stick to the usual rules and advice: keep one and a half meters away from others, wash your hands regularly with soap and water, and cough and sneeze into the inside of your elbow. Wear a face mask in public transport – preferably also in public areas – and have yourself tested (again) if you have corona complaints.
Pay attention: check for all current advice the website of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
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