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I feel like I& #39;m hearing this a lot, so I& #39;m going to try to explain why it doesn& #39;t work to get tested Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving and then be good to go for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Don& #39;t use that test to decide you& #39;re safe!
So say I& #39;m infected by someone anytime between tomorrow and this weekend. Then, in anticipation of Thanksgiving and seeing people, I get tested on on Tuesday, two days before the holiday. If my test comes back negative, that doesn& #39;t mean much
The test is basically telling me how much virus is in my body at that very moment. And usually, it takes between 5 and 9 days for the virus to show up on a test. So on that Tuesday before Thanksgiving, maybe the levels weren& #39;t quite high enough to show up on the test, but ...
The virus is already in my body, and it keeps replicating, and by the next day or Thanksgiving itself I could be a lot more sick and infectious. So my negative test didn& #39;t stop me from getting anyone else sick, and in fact it probably gave me a false sense of security
To truly be virus-free, you would need to strictly isolate for 14 days. And then you could get a test to confirm you& #39;re truly virus-free. But we& #39;re already more than 14 days out from Thanksgiving, so it& #39;s too late to do this now. And it& #39;s so hard to strictly isolate anyway
This is important to remember for all high-risk activities you might do! You can& #39;t get off a plane and get a COVID test that day and find out if you got infected on the plane. A test won& #39;t tell you anything for certain about your exposure on that flight for at least a week
I understand that this is incredibly frustrating, but that& #39;s kind of the point. COVID spreads so much *because* of that long incubation period (ie the fact that it takes so long for the virus to show up on a test or to have symptoms)
It& #39;s hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that testing negative today doesn& #39;t mean you won& #39;t test positive tomorrow. Or that having no symptoms doesn& #39;t mean you can& #39;t spread the virus. But that& #39;s unfortunately the way COVID works, and partly why we& #39;re in this mess
if you’re going to gather regardless, just eat outdoors! my qualm is specifically with people thinking a negative test result is sufficient to eat indoors like normal. it’s not!
