Are you positive?

 48 Hours Later...

So after nearly two and a half years of the Pandemic, eighteen months of which was spent working in an environment that was frequently highly exposed to the virus, in a country that had one of the highest rates of infections in the world, we have finally succumbed...

Yes all three of us have tested positive 48 hours after landing in the UK.

We tested before we flew - in fact I test five times in a row! Twice on one day, just to be sure. Nada, zip, zero, nothing. 

We weren't feeling great after the journey, which wasn't surprising - it was a 12 hour flight in economy class followed by a 5 hour layover in Heathrow then another hour long flight to Newcastle. Stress, end of year fatigue and jetlag all combined to make us feel less than bright, but I had more cold like symptoms first and then so did Nicola and Thomas. We took another test just to be sure and bingo! You are a winner...

Whether we picked it up in transit, had it before we left and it wasn't strong enough to show on a lateral flow test or picked it up in the airport we can't answer - we tested, stayed masked, washed hands etc. We thought we were probably, on balance, FINE! Wrong!

I mean it could have been the guy in the row behind who spent the entire flight coughing, it could have been any one of the covid positive staff or students that were around school in the last week before they tested and isolated or perhaps after they came back and were still infectious. It could have been a random contact in the airport in KL or the hotel or at a gas station or store or in Heathrow or whatever. 

In the end it doesn't matter - we picked it up somewhere, despite being fully vaccinated (Thomas too) and despite being as careful as possible and despite living in a country with relatively low levels of infection (especially Omicron) and high levels of covid procedure compliance. 

So we are isolating in our 'holiday' accommodation, hoping we haven't passed this on to anyone.

I'm fairly certain this is Omicron as the symptoms are like a cold - starting with a heavy cold, moving rapidly to a moderate cold and then to a light cold. I probably was at my worst on Tuesday during the day, about 24-36 hours after the flight, so jetlag not helping either. I felt better, but not great on Wednesday and now on Thursday I feel like I have a very mild cold. I'm still positive, but not as emphatically so as Tuesday (the test threw up the - 'you've won covid' line before the control line, whereas today was very much the other way around). Fingers crossed the symptoms continue to get increasingly mild. 

Nicola and Thomas are about 24 hours behind me, so what that means is anyone's guess.

What is interesting to observe is the fact that I have worked in far worse conditions that I have been with Covid and/or whatever else is hanging around with it (good news everyone, you can have Covid and other things too! What great fun - I could have Covid and a cold! Yay!).

This says a lot about my profession and the work environment in the UK (it also probably says quite a lot about me as well).

In teaching there is an inordinate amount of pressure not to be off. 

1. Firstly, you know someone else will have to cover your lessons and they will not be able to deliver the content in the same way you would have done - if you are halfway decent at your job, they won't be able to deliver it anywhere near as well as you, no matter how good they are, they won't know exactly what you had planned or have the same relationship with your class. 
2. Secondly, someone else will have to cover your class - they will be directed to cover your class rather than do their own work - there are not 'spare' teachers just hanging around, this will be someone who could usefully be doing something else. Okay in UK schools there are now cover supervisors, but they are often stretched thin and often also pulled in multiple directions themselves. So you know that you are condemning someone else to using their precious free time to cover for you and still not be able to achieve the aims you would if you were there.
3. The cost implications. I have worked for very benign school leaders, but even I was made very aware of the cost of 1 hour's worth of cover. Not being at work costs a school an enormous amount of public money. Money which is subsequently not being used to improve the experience of students.
4. Time - we have limited curriculum time as it is and most UK students will not spend extensive amounts of time studying beyond the classroom or in tuition, and nor should they - there's more to life than exams. However, this does mean that there is an imperative to use every available hour you have at your disposal.

I've thought about how I felt at my worst with Covid and I'm certain I've stood (just) in front of classes in far worse states. Most of the time if I've ended up ill I've gone into work first and then reached a point where I've either tapped out my self or been sent home. 

Even then I will have returned way before I should have done and have doubtless prolonged any illness beyond the normal run of the disease. 

So what is strange about this whole situation is that only now, after a global pandemic, we have decided that it's not a great idea to encourage unwell people back to work. Yet worse still we are seeing a reversal of this with no official mandates about test and isolate, meaning that no matter your health condition you can be encouraged to go back into work even if you are Covid positive - there is nothing stopping your workplace from insisting you just pile back into your job asap and get productive!

Okay a sensible employer (and most public service employers seem to follow this) will ask you to wait for a minimum of 5 days after a positive test, but there's no legal obligation for an employer to support your sick leave due to Covid - ridiculous!

Anyway, we should be all good by the weekend or early next week.

Fingers crossed and I hope you all manage to avoid the rona for as long as possible!