My family (kids, partner) are at home socially isolating. They literally have not had contact with anyone other than me for almost two weeks. I am a pharmacist in the community and I am still working full time in the pharmacy.
Am I supposed to sequester myself from them when I get home, since there is possibility that I have been exposed to the virus while at work?
Posted Mar 24, 2020, 11:36 AM UTC
My husband and I both work in hospitals. We strip down to undies in the garage and head straight for the shower. Our scrubs don’t even make it into the house really. Just straight into the wash, by themselves. Shoes stay outside too. We have a table set up with wipes to clean off our backpacks and lunch bags. It’s the best we can do. We have no one to send our kids to.
I don’t think so. I too, work-at a hospital-and have been going to work and coming home to my kid daily.
Sending you strength hospital mom. I can’t imagine how hard you must be working!! Hugs.
Right back at ya!!!
How bad a things where you are? I’m in a small Canadian city, we have no cases yet but I’m sure it’s coming.
New York State, we have it at work.
My husband and I are both doctors in NYC. I come home, wash my hands, put my hair up, then go to the bathroom strip, wash my hands again and then change into the clothes I've left there. Can't really strip right at the door because our babysitter is home and the apartment is small. As much as I love her I don't want her to see my underwear.
We both also know that at some point we will bring it home and we're just going to have to deal with that.
I'm also Canadian, a nurse.
There is no sense isolating from your own family unless you have certainly been exposed. Even then, it'll likely be too late.
The purpose of isolating isn't to eliminate all possible contact with others- it's to reduce possible vectors. You being around your family won't reduce their risk. We won't all be self-quarantining forever. The reality is most people who would get infected by it now will still be infected by it later, just down the road and not all at once.
Good luck out there. There's a lot of cases in my city now.
My husband is currently a “presumed positive.” He’s isolating in the guest room. It sucks, especially because our 12 month old misses him and occasionally hears him and gets excited. It’s breaking my heart that he keeps getting let down like that. Anyway, the really frustrating thing is that they won’t test my husband. We won’t know whether he has/had it, and we won’t know whether the rest of us were asymptotic or whether we need to keep isolating.
Edited to add: the doctor said to self-isolate for 7 days after the onset of symptoms.
My husband is a pharmacist (on paternity for another week) but we don’t plan on socially isolating from him. We’ve just accepted that he’s probably going to bring it home and we’re probably going to get the virus, hopefully asymptomatically. We’re socially isolating to keep from passing it on, not to keep from getting sick ourselves. We don’t have risk factors so it’s just what it is.
We’re of course going to make efforts (him stripping off and putting clothes directly in the wash, maybe a full shower before he touches the baby) but we’ve just accepted that it’s likely we’ll get it, it’s likely we’ll be just fine, and the best we can do is make sure we don’t pass it along.
My husband is also a pharmacist and on paternity leave for this week and goes back the next. Not planning on socially isolating from him. Luckily his pharmacy coordinator is making a lot of his job remote so he will only have to go into the hospital a couple weeks a month. Just hoping for the best.
As much as I hate the thought, we have kind of accepted that we will likely get COVID, as other posters said. My husband and I are both still working as essential employees (not in healthcare). I've been doing the things recommended below, but I'm not sure it will completely keep it contained. I also am afraid because my mom is our childcare, so I fear that her and my stepdad will get it if we do. She's in fairly good health, but is 62 so I worry more for her than I do for us :(
I could send our daughter to daycare, but I feel like that may be worse.
Both my husband and I are "critical infrastructure" people so I don't really know how we "isolate" it's just a normal day with a lot less people on the road...
I wouldn’t unless someone in your family is at increased risk. Husband works in the hospital, I’m pregnant, 4yo is...probably about average for a 4yo (some immune suppressants some boosters, doc said he was fine). My spouse showers and takes off his work clothes but we are planning on getting it and just staying extra isolated so we aren’t vectors for spreading it further into the community.
My husband is medical lab tech, I work at home right now, kid is in day care at a hospital. Husband comes home, showers, then goes and gets boy. I'm super anxious about him getting this.
I have heard of some people stripping down and showering as soon as they get home. That might be a precaution you adopt. Unless someone in your family has a compromised immune system... in that case it might be appropriate to take extreme isolation precautions.
Thanks for what you do, and I’m sorry you have to take the risks many of us do not.
This is what we do. My partner and I both have to work outside of the home. When we get home we strip down- shoes elsewhere, and take a shower.
That's what we're doing. I work in the medical field and I put my work clothes away as soon as I get home, shower, and put on my "house clothes."
This. Strip at the door and wash hands to elbows and or shower.
Yep we do this too- sucks now that I finally started working from home and am dyingggggg for my husband to take the baby when he gets home from the hospital but I know he needs to still shower ha