What to do if you test positive for Covid and how many times can you be infected
22.06.2022 - 16:01
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Sub-variants of Covid-19, named BA.4 and BA.4, are the latest threat to Brits’ health. The Omicron wave has seen numerous people infected with the virus for a second, or perhaps more, time.
Data from the Office for National Statistics suggests the arrival of Omicron prompted a 15-fold increase in the rate of reinfections. For the week ending June 11, around 1.4 million people in the UK had the coronavirus, an increase of approximately half a million from the week before.
With tests no longer provided for free by the NHS, many people are likely to be unknowingly carrying the virus while going about their daily business. For those that do test positive, guidance is in place, although isolation is no longer law.
Read more: Could free Covid tests return amid soaring cases and NHS burden worries?
Currently, the NHS advises anyone in Scotland who test positive to try and stay at home for five days after the day of the test. This period of time has continued to be reduced as experts discover more and more about the implications of spreading the virus.
The guidance is to avoid contact with other people during this time. Advice differs for other parts of the UK, with links to those respective rules on the NHS website.
No precise number on how many times someone can be infected with Covid is known. Reinfection is more likely than ever at the moment, due to the virus having evolved to evade immune defences such as antibodies created by previous infections or from the vaccines.
Although people who are fully up-to-date with their vaccine status are not immune to being infected, evidence still suggests that a milder form of the disease should be expected. How many times someone gets re-infected will likely differ from person to