It’s an all-too-common occasion: The good friend or member of the family you simply met with tells you they examined optimistic for COVID-19.

Maybe you had gathered for a vacation occasion. Maybe you simply met for dinner or drinks. You had been in all probability indoors and unmasked. Or possibly certainly one of your kids’s classmates simply examined optimistic.

Regardless of the circumstances, don’t panic and get examined. There are established finest practices to reduce your danger and maintain your family members protected because the Omicron variant picks up steam throughout the U.S.

Here’s what Yahoo News medical contributor Dr. Lucy McBride advises if you’ve been exposed to someone who examined optimistic for COVID-19, significantly for folks or guardians with school-age kids.

(Some responses have been edited for readability.)

Yahoo News: What ought to folks do if they study that they had been round someone who examined optimistic for COVID-19?

Dr. Lucy McBride: For individuals who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19, if they continue to be asymptomatic, with none signs, it’s necessary to get a PCR check three to 5 days after the final publicity. … The PCR check will flip optimistic earlier than a fast antigen check … however they’ll additionally use fast antigen exams as a type of day go to inform them within the days three to 14 throughout the incubation interval, whether or not or not they’re carrying infectious ranges of virus of their nostril; the exams are fairly good at ruling that out.

Does the Omicron variant have an effect on COVID-19 testing?

The Omicron variant is extra contagious, so we are able to anticipate to see extra family transmission, for instance, as a result of persons are dwelling in shut quarters, however Omicron doesn’t change the testing panorama. It simply means we’d like extra readily accessible, fast antigen exams for individuals who have been exposed however who are usually not symptomatic.

What ought to a father or mother or guardian do if a baby or teen was exposed to COVID-19 in school?

A detailed contact is outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as someone who has been in the identical room nearer than 6 toes for greater than quarter-hour over a 24-hour interval. So simply because a baby has been exposed to a COVID-19 case in school doesn’t imply that the particular person essentially had an publicity as outlined by CDC.

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If a baby is exposed to an individual with COVID-19, what to do subsequent actually is dependent upon whether or not they’re vaccinated. If the kid is unvaccinated, they want to keep residence and isolate for 14 days until the varsity has in place the “test-to-stay” program, which permits college students to go to college if they, on that day, check damaging with a fast antigen check.

If your baby is vaccinated and has been exposed to someone who has COVID-19, the CDC says that there’s no want to quarantine that baby, however they need to in all probability get examined three to 5 days after the final publicity with a PCR check to be certain that they aren’t carrying the virus asymptomatically of their nostril.

It’s actually necessary to enable us to maintain wholesome, nonsymptomatic children [who have been exposed to COVID-19] at school … that we roll out a test-to-stay program in all colleges within the nation, whereby children who’ve been exposed can take a fast antigen check. And if it’s damaging, that tells us that they’re protected to go to college; they aren’t carrying infectious ranges of virus of their nostril, such that they pose a hazard to different folks within the college.

What ought to a father or mother or guardian do if a baby or teen finally ends up testing optimistic for COVID-19?

If your baby exams optimistic for COVID-19, to begin with, it’s necessary to know that that baby could be very possible to do extraordinarily nicely, particularly if they’re vaccinated, as a result of most children, even if they’re unvaccinated, have a tendency to do nicely with COVID-19. The second factor is to alert any shut contacts. So anybody who has been in shut contact with that baby beginning 48 hours earlier than signs started or earlier than the optimistic check, whichever got here first, wants to be alerted that they’re at potential danger for COVID-19.



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