Skip to:
We used to assume of breakthrough instances of COVID in vaccinated folks as being comparatively uncommon. But the rise of the omicron variant has proven that is now not the case.
We know booster pictures assist increase your safety in opposition to omicron, as public well being officers urge everybody eligible for one to get one. We additionally know that being vaccinated nonetheless offers you better safety in opposition to extreme hospitalization and demise.
Still, when a breakthrough case occurs, it may be simple to really feel shock and shock. Just ask three of our personal KQED hosts:
All three have skilled their very own breakthrough COVID instances in the final months, and there is a lot they need they’d identified. If you’ve got been questioning how a optimistic COVID check proper now may have an effect on your day by day life, preserve studying to find out about their experiences — from the signs and logistical stresses to the significance of self-care, and what they need they might have deliberate for beforehand.
What are the widespread signs of a breakthrough COVID case?
For Pendarvis Harshaw, the first signal of his COVID case in summer time 2021 was dropping his odor. “I got a bit of a cough and the first thing I remember was trying to spray some cologne and then smell it,” he says. “That’s when I was like, ‘Wait, I can’t smell my cologne.'”
In Marisa Lagos’s house, all of her household contracted the omicron variant over the holidays. For her, it confirmed up as what she calls “flu-like symptoms.”
“I was in bed for a few days, just really fatigued. But nothing serious — nowhere even approaching, needing to go to the hospital,” she says.
While most individuals with a breakthrough COVID case expertise gentle signs, you continue to ought to acknowledge that you simply’re sick and it will not really feel nice. And folks expertise signs otherwise.
Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine, advised NPR that the terminology “mild” is mostly a catchall. It can go from being “a day of feeling crummy to being completely laid up in bed for a week, all of your bones hurt and your brain isn’t working well.”
Common COVID-19 signs, in line with the CDC, embody:
- Fever or chills
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or issue respiration
- Fatigue
- Muscle or physique aches
- Headache
- New loss of style or odor
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nostril
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
After a COVID house check and a drive-through speedy PCR check each got here again optimistic, the realization sank in for Harshaw.
“I think I had one day where I was just, like, straight on the ground … laid out in a fetal position,” he says.
As far as signs, he remembers a “little bit of the sniffles, a little bit of sneezing, definitely chills, body aches — you name it. … Energy depleted, feeling like gravity is tenfold.”
Alexis Madrigal says his early signs began with a “little tickle in the back of the throat” and a stuffy nostril. “It wasn’t really until the test came back positive that I was like, ‘Oh, no.'”
Don’t essentially anticipate a COVID an infection to register in your physique such as you assume it would, says Madrigal, who notes there was “nothing super distinctive” about his illness at that early stage of testing.
“I did lose my sense of smell, but it was much later,” he says.
When do you have to get a COVID check?
If you might have a fever or a cough or really feel any signs outlined by the CDC, you might have COVID-19 and may get examined. If you’ve got are available shut contact with somebody who examined optimistic for the virus, get examined.
All of this recommendation comes with the large caveat: We know that discovering a check quick, whether or not it is an onsite PCR check or an at-home check like a BinaxNOW package, could be tough — and, in the case of at-home exams, costly. And you might need to be ready to discover a number of choices for getting a COVID check.
“I have to acknowledge that we are in a position of privilege,” says Lagos, since she and her household “had access to a lot of at-home tests that we had bought prior to this scare ahead of seeing people for Christmas.”
Looking for a COVID check close to you in the Bay Area? Read our information to discovering one.
I’m absolutely vaccinated. When ought to I take a COVID check?
Do you might have signs? If so, attempt to discover a check instantly.
The CDC recommends that if you happen to’ve come into shut contact with somebody with COVID-19, absolutely vaccinated folks ought to be examined 5 to seven days after your final publicity — i.e., once you got here into contact with somebody who has a confirmed case of COVID-19.
There is already proof that the omicron variant might have a shorter incubation interval than earlier types of COVID. But if you happen to select to check sooner than 5 days from an publicity, do not take an early destructive end result as definitive proof you do not have COVID. Keep testing, to make certain you are not infectious and inadvertently spreading COVID to others.
Lagos’s story highlights the significance of repeat testing — and never accepting an early at-home destructive end result as an indication somebody has no COVID threat.
“We had actually asked everybody to take those rapid tests [over the holidays], just to be safe,” she says. “And so we had tested ourselves and our kids. I did have one kid who had some minor cold symptoms and we tested him repeatedly. And he didn’t come up positive until after Christmas, after we had seen people.”
I’m not but vaccinated. When ought to I take a COVID check?
If you are not absolutely vaccinated and are experiencing signs of COVID-19, it’s best to get examined instantly. If you are not absolutely vaccinated and have been in shut contact with somebody who examined optimistic for COVID-19, get examined instantly.
The CDC says it’s best to get examined once more 5 to seven days after your final publicity and instantly if you happen to expertise signs.
What steps ought to I observe if I check optimistic for COVID?
If you do check optimistic for COVID with an at-home check or a PCR check, don’t panic. Find a strategy to verify your outcomes with a second check whilst you plan to isolate your self from anybody else in your family. The CDC has a selected guidelines you possibly can observe if you happen to get sick. Read alongside for key takeaways and recommendation.
Reporting your optimistic COVID check
If you check optimistic for COVID on a PCR check, somebody from the well being division might name you as half of their contact tracing efforts to sluggish the unfold of COVID.
However, if you happen to check optimistic for COVID utilizing a house antigen check, the California Department of Public Health says there are specific steps it’s best to take to report your outcomes when utilizing an over-the-counter check.
- Use the directions in your check to self-report your COVID-positive outcomes.
- Some over-the-counter exams might have computerized reporting, whereas others require you to report your individual outcomes by way of an app in your telephone.
- If your check doesn’t present digital reporting and you’ve got well being care protection, you possibly can share your outcomes with a well being care supplier to obtain applicable medical care.
Kaiser says that you probably have a optimistic house antigen check — whether or not you are symptomatic or not — you are thought of optimistic for COVID and do not want to substantiate with a PCR check, however it’s best to nonetheless report your optimistic COVID-19 house check. If you are a Kaiser member, you possibly can report your optimistic check utilizing their optimistic COVID-19 house check e-visit software.
As a journalist, Lagos says she will’t assist however be “struck” by what the lack of a constant system for self-reporting optimistic house check outcomes means for public COVID case numbers this winter.
“We’re probably undercounting these pretty dramatically at this point,” she says.
Talk to your folks
If you’ve got examined optimistic for COVID, it is important that you simply let any of your shut contacts know that they could have been uncovered to the virus. Whether that is by way of a bunch textual content or a telephone name, letting anybody you could have come into direct contact with offers others an opportunity to organize and get examined themselves.
Madrigal says he started interrogating himself about whom he’d been in touch with — his neighbors, his mother-in-law and his youngsters. “You kind of get in touch with folks, and they immediately want to go get tested,” he mentioned. “That’s people’s very natural reaction.” But when is the finest time in your shut contacts to get examined?
The CDC says that somebody with COVID-19 can unfold the virus beginning 48 hours or two days earlier than the individual has any signs or exams optimistic. For your absolutely vaccinated shut contacts, it is best in the event that they take their check 5 to seven days after their preliminary publicity of coming into contact with you. For anybody unvaccinated, it is essential that they get examined straight away.
Madrigal says that going again and tracing everybody he got here into contact with, and dealing with these logistics, had been some of the most difficult elements of getting COVID: “When we say we’re ‘all in it together’ in a positive way … you’re also all in it together in the sense that everyone you’ve exposed is in it with you.”
“That was tough,” he admits.
Isolate from others
The CDC recommends isolating your self from different members of your family — if attainable, inside a separate, contained space in your house and away from others — for no less than 5 full days, with Day Zero as the day you first skilled signs. This CDC steerage modified from a earlier isolation interval of 10 days, and native public well being specialists encourage you to weigh the dangers of breaking isolation sooner than 10 days.
It’s important to solely enterprise out if you could search quick medical care. If you are experiencing any of the CDC’s emergency warning indicators like bother respiration, strain in the chest, or pale, grey, or blue-colored pores and skin, search medical care.
Madrigal says that as quickly as his at-home check got here again optimistic, he was on the telephone to schedule his PCR check whereas packing a bag to isolate from his household in a separate condominium. “We were lucky enough to find a neighbor who had a rental [nearby]” the place he was capable of isolate, he says.
While Lagos acknowledges she feels “lucky” to have had entry to paid day off, throughout which she and her companion may keep house, “in terms of preventing it from spreading throughout a household, I mean — we have tiny homes in San Francisco,” she notes. “Most of us don’t have extra bedrooms or bathrooms.”
For that purpose, Lagos says that in her private expertise, a lot of the official recommendation about isolating with COVID “is not that practical when you’re actually in this situation — particularly with kids involved.”
If discovering a separate house to attend out isolation or quarantine exterior your house is not attainable for you, both, attempt to designate areas inside your house that cut back the risk of transmission. That may appear to be sleeping in one other room, utilizing a separate toilet, sporting masks inside always or enhancing air flow inside your house — for instance, by opening your home windows. The CDC additionally recommends avoiding sharing all private home goods — towels, dishes, glassware — with the people you reside with.
Think about it this fashion, recommends Madrigal: Even if you cannot isolate in a totally separate house, “what is the way that I can reduce my exposing the people around me as much as possible?”
Monitor your signs
Remember to maintain observe of your signs — even when it means writing them down. If you ever have any of the following signs, or any of the different emergency warning indicators per the CDC, name 911 instantly:
- Trouble respiration
- Persistent ache or strain in the chest
- New confusion
- Inability to wake or keep awake
- Pale, grey, or blue-colored pores and skin, lips, or nail beds, relying on pores and skin tone
Madrigal says it’s essential to keep an eye on your body after your COVID diagnosis: “If I didn’t have these kinds of metrics [like resting heart rate], I would simply assume it was all in my head.”