A scenario all too frequent now is that a staff member rings up and lets us know they have COVID and are taking a few days off. This is better than having them come to work and making more people sick.
There are two points here.
The first is widely known. If you look at this graph below, you will see the red arrow is the most dangerous period of spread before people realise they have COVID. Generally, the RAT tests cannot pick it up, as the symptoms are only starting up, so few tests are done here. All you can do here is get people in the shop-tested. Since a RAT test will not pick it up, they will need to go to a testing site.
However, what is not widely known is that after people are over COVID, in the Post-infectious area (see the green arrow), they can still spread COVID. This period lasts for about three days and it is after the symptoms are resolved. This is due to something called viral shedding.
It is worth reading up here because it is not being discussed. If you want more read here too.
We ask people to work from home, if possible, for a few days after they are over COVID. If they cannot work from home, perhaps they can take a few days off to get over this period.
