Corona virus has unsettled us all and changed our way of life as we stay at home where possible and try our best to practice social distancing when shopping for essentials of exercising outside.
Are you symptomatic?
You may be worried that you actually have Corona virus, if think that you have Coronavirus symptoms. Symptoms include a new, continuous cough, a high temperature, feeling fatigued and you may have a shortness of breath.
Use the Covid-19 symptom checker to check out your symptoms.
Or perhaps you think that you have Coronavirus because you have recently returned from a destination that has high incidents of Covid-19 or you think that you have been in contact with someone who has it.
If your symptoms are mild you should self-isolate. This means staying at home for at least 7 days. If you are living with others at home, they should not leave the house for 14 days.
Testing for Covid-19
A highly reliable way to test if you currently have Covid-19 is to take a PCR test. This test is not suitable if you have had symptoms in the past as it only tests if you have the virus now.
When you have had Covid-19, your body will create antibodies which will help to protect you from infection in the future. An antibody test would be more useful at this stage as it is able to identify if you have these antibodies and therefore you have had the virus. Currently due to the newness of Covid-19, there is uncertainty around whether antibodies will stop you getting the virus again or how long any sort of immunity may last.
Reliable and Government approved PCR Test
A PRC test will test for the presence of the virus on a swap. The test looks for the presence of the RNA of the virus itself.
It is 99.9% accurate at confirming if anyone with symptoms is actively affected with the virus. It will also pick up whether the virus is present for people who have been exposed but are not showing any symptoms yet, as it may take up to 14 days to actually show symptoms.
This test is a more expensive test as it requires high technical expertise during analysis in a laboratory.
Home PCR Test Kit
You can now order a Covid-19 home PRC test kit online where you can take a throat swab in the comfort of your own home. Just send off your sample to the lab in the prepaid envelope. Your results will be available 2 days from the lab receiving your sample.
If you test positive an online GP team will be at hand to give you support, advice and signposting, whilst you self-isolate.
