Goa: Isolate self immediately if exposed to Covid infected, advise doctors

PANAJI: Contacts of a Covid-19 person must immediately self-isolate themselves prior to testing and even before they get their test results to break the chain of transmission, doctors say.

A person is infective even during this incubation period when one may not experience any symptoms, head of department of pulmonary medicine at GMC, Dr Durga Lawande says.
The incubation period is the time between catching the virus and beginning to experience symptoms of the disease. According to the ministry of health and family welfare, the incubation period for Covid-19 ranges from 1-14 days but is most commonly around five days.
“If you have come into close contact with a person who has tested positive, you must immediately self-isolate. Tests on contacts are done only after four to five days or as soon as one turns symptomatic because the virus may have entered the body but not yet manifested itself during this incubation period,” Dr Lawande says.
“This is the reason that all the other family members are also asked to quarantine when one member in the family tests positive for Covid,” she adds.
State epidemiologist Dr Utkarsh Betodkar says contacts are advised to immediately stay in isolation as they are infectious during this incubation period and although asymptomatic may unknowingly be carriers of Covid-19.
Tests done between the fifth to the tenth day after exposure are more likely to turn positive, Dr Lawande says. “One needn’t get alarmed if a close contact has tested positive. It’s better to wait for five days or as soon as one develops symptoms to get tested. Testing on the first day is not recommended,” she said.
In the initial days of the pandemic, the directorate of health services were back tracing all the contacts of a positive person. After community transmission set in, this has been reduced to family and work contacts only.
The government is now testing those with influenza like illnesses (ILI) or those with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI), acute breathlessness, cough, high fever etc, contacts of positive person and health workers who have been exposed to Covid patients.