Yesterday, we returned from a cruise holiday to Norway, accompanied by our daughter. When she got home she looked up the Cunard site to see what people were saying about our cruise, which encompassed the news of the Queen's death. The first thing she saw was comments from a couple of people saying they had spent a lot of the cruise in the medical wing, quarantined as they had tested positive for COVID a few days in (we had COVID tests before we boarded). Out of curiousity and because she had a hint of a cough, she decided to do a test and was gobsmacked when a positive result told her she had COVID.
She immediately contacted us and we too tested positive although none of us had any known symptoms, so I looked at the NHS site and its list of potential symptoms ran in to double figures. There wasn't a disease from a pimple on your nose to terminal cancer that didn't have at least one symptom on this list and includes many symptoms - like an earache, that no one is likely to think of as a symptom of COVID.
It did occur to me that it would be much more useful, if instead of giving you long lists of symptoms and the % of people having them, the NHS simply advised anyone feeling unwell to take a COVID test, even if they are fairly sure the cause is something else. If a COVID test comes out positive, you know you have the disease and what the symptoms are, or whether you even have any is broadly irrelevant.
Last week, on holiday, I blamed the earache I was left with after going in a cable car that whisked me up to the top of a cliff face/fiord side over 3,000 feet high in only a couple of minutes on the rapid ascent, on just that. One of the reasons for my dislike of flying is how much ear pain it causes me, so my assumption was reasonably based.
Now I know I have COVID, I am beginning to think that it could also be a symptom of COVID because my ears are still not entirely back to normal 4 days after the cable car ride. But it never occurred to me to look at the COVID site and check because I knew, or thought I did, that my earache was caused by my cable car ride and anyway was not a symptom of COVID. I was wrong on one count and probably on two and may well have passed the illness on because I was entirely ignorant of one of the multiple symptoms connected with COVID
However if the NHS site just advised anyone who felt unwell, even if they knew the cause, to take a COVID test, it would probably catch far more cases and reduce the pass-on rate.
DD was due to travel to London on a busy crowded commuter train on Wednesday, to attend a meeting. Now she won't and I wonder how many will not get COVID as a result.
The simple solution is for the NHS to advise anyone feeling unwell to take a test no matter what the symptoms and encourage people to take one before going anywhwere crowded. masks are fine, but knowing you have the illness and keeping away from other people is much better.
