Covid-19: when are we in contact? And other questions that we ask ourselves every day

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When should you get tested?

What is a contact case?

With the epidemic resumption in France, laboratories are increasingly overwhelmed.

In order to see a little more clearly and to know if you need to be tested, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed answers on Europe 1 the questions which are most frequently asked to him.

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What is a contact case?

A contact case is simple: these are all the members of your household.

If you've ever had direct contact with a case of coronavirus, face to face within a meter, that makes you a contact case too.

If you've ever shared an enclosed space, like an office, a meeting room, even a taxi for at least fifteen minutes, you are also a contact case.

But be careful, if everyone wears a mask (both the patient and the contact case), at that time, you are not one of the isolated people and therefore you are not considered to be at risk.

When to go get tested

When you are a contact case, you have to do a test after a week.

If you are ever in the same household, on the other hand, you have to be tested immediately, then wait for the recovery, and be tested again after a week.

But for other people, it's the one-week test, which is the incubation time.

And be careful: when you are suddenly suspected of being a contact case, you must remain in isolation, request a work stoppage.

Once you have done the test, you have to wait for the result!

Don't go back to work, even if it takes a while, until you have the results, whether negative or positive.

If the test is positive, how long will it take to return to work?

After a week.

This is the period of more or less maximum contagion that we can have.

And you don't need to do a control PCR test.

You do not need a doctor's certificate of competence.

A week after your symptoms start, you can return to work without any problem.

Should you go see your doctor if you think you have the coronavirus?

Why not go straight to the lab?

Yes, you have to go see your doctor since he can give you a prescription.

You're supposed to have priority in the labs to skip the line.

And then, we must not forget that there is the coronavirus, but also other infections which, sometimes, can be more serious.

Not all fever is coronavirus, so any stomach ache or any symptom that seems a little weird to you may indicate a pathology that is sometimes a little more serious.

So, yes, you have to go see your doctor.

If I don't have specific symptoms, should I get tested? 

No, no interest.

Leave room for contact cases and sick people.

Eventually, if you took a lot of risks - you were in an armored bar - you might wonder, but ask your doctor for advice rather than going to the lab on the fly.

Until when are we going to have to wear a mask?

Either we will have a vaccine, and we may be able to free ourselves a little more.

Either we achieve collective immunity, but we are far from it.

For now, the mask is our only defense against the Covid.

Should a child with a runny nose be tested?

No.

Not all runny noses are from the coronavirus, so, please, no eviction from the community: it is the French Pediatric Society which recommends it.

And don't go to the doctor asking for a PCR.

Go see your doctor, you will have a consultation and he can reassure you.

But a runny nose in children is not a symptom of Covid.