What Should People Who Test Positive for PCR Pay Attention to?

What Should People Who Test Positive for PCR Pay Attention to?

What should people with a positivePCR test pay attention to, Until the person is diagnosed as Covid positive, there is a possibility of infecting other members of the household, but there is also a possibility of not infecting.

Therefore, due to the possibility of not transmitting it and the fact that it can be transmitted after that, there are some rules that the sick individual and the relatives of the patient must follow.

Rules to be followed by people with a positive PCR test

  • The sick person must be isolated in a room
  • The sick person should wear a mask at all times
  • Others in the household should also wear masks at all times
  • The isolated room should be ventilated frequently
  • Entry and exit to the room by other family members should be minimized
  • If possible, the sick person should eat alone in an isolated room
  • No one should be in the room when he/she removes his/her mask for food or any other reason
  • The room should also be ventilated immediately after eating
  • Minimize contact with other members of the household during the 14 days of quarantine
  • Kitchen utensils to be used by the patient should be separate
  • After physical contact with the patient's personal belongings such as sheets, bed linen and clothes, hands must be washed in accordance with the specified procedures. Hand hygiene is very important at this point.

Although it is difficult to follow these rules one hundred percent in the same home environment, care should be taken as much as possible to protect other members of the family. The critical issue is that the mask alone is not enough to protect, but the rules are enough to protect the other person.

After the person has been tested and the test result is positive, they are given the medication they need to take throughout their treatment in bulk and Public Health teams question the patient's condition on a daily basis until the medication is finished.

During quarantine, most patients will recover without getting worse, but a small number of patients may get worse. Patients in home quarantine should contact the center where they were diagnosed if they experience shortness of breath, high fever and deterioration in general condition.

After the 14-day quarantine period is over, PCR confirmation is performed. If the PCR result is negative and no other positive cases or symptoms are detected in the family, the quarantine ends. And the person continues his/her normal life.

Can a person who is Covid positive once get sick again?

Theoretically, all viral diseases produce antibody immunity of varying duration. This period can be 3-5 months in some viral diseases, years in some diseases and lifelong in others. Since Covid 19 is a new virus, we have no clear information about the duration of antibody-related immunity. However, it has been shown that in SARS 1, which we call SARS 1 from the same family members, which first emerged and caused an epidemic, 17 years have passed and immunity has still been shown to persist. We will probably see a similar picture in Covid 19. However, the immunity of the immune system is not only antibody mediated, but also cellular immunity, which is now described in social media as T cells, is a more complex, less measurable type of immunity that requires very special examination that cannot be done in every laboratory.

It is said that this type of immunity can be more long-lasting and can create cross-immunity within the Corona family itself, and that this may be the reason why not everyone in the society has severe illness, and why some people do not show any symptoms despite having the virus.

What is PCR and Antibody Testing?

Antibody testing can show infection in the short term. But we do not yet know how long it can show this because the reliability of antibody tests in Turkey is also questionable. In addition, the duration is very limited. We are talking about an 8-month period. In these 8 months, we see that the level of antibodies of infections that have been passed at the beginning gradually decreases, but in the short term, in cases that can show antibodies within 15-20 days, there may be the idea that you have had Corona and immunity has formed, but in those who are antibody positive, it must be determined whether they carry the virus with PCR and whether they are still contagious. Because antibody is an indicator that the person has encountered the virus. When antibodies are detected, the patient may not be cleared of the virus. Therefore, the PCR test is important at this point.

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CreatorNP Istanbul Hospital Editorial Board
Updated At03 June 2024
Created At01 September 2020
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