Covid Confusion

08 Feb Covid Confusion

Dear Here to Help,

I tested positive for covid a few days ago and received a letter from the NSW government, which says “this notice confirms that you were required to self-isolate from 11-01-2022 to 19-01-2022… You may leave isolation if you do not have a sore throat, runny nose, cough for shortness of breath…”

I am confused and rang my doctor and tried to ring the NSW government, but nobody seems able to help me. My questions are:

• Is the 19^th Jan my last day of isolation, or first day of not needing to self-isolate?
• What if I have a regular cough or shortness of breath from asthma or another health condition?

I just wish the government would communicate clearly! It’s stressful enough at this time already!

Thank you for your query.

There have been numerous complaints about the clarity of covid communications from Australian governments, including different documents or web pages saying different things. Let’s see if we can work through your letter and the associated Health Order.

The Health Order states:

• medically cleared, in relation to a diagnosed person, means— (a) the diagnosed person has self-isolated for 7 days from the day the person undertook the test that resulted in the person becoming a diagnosed person…

The Order does not state whether the date you tested counts as day 0 or day 1, so let’s look at the NSW government’s website.

The NSW government website at https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/factsheets/Pages/advice-for-confirmed.aspx states:

• You must self-isolate for 7 days from the day you were tested. You can only leave self-isolation after 7 days if you do not have a sore throat, runny nose, cough or shortness of breath… For example, if you were tested at 10am on Tuesday, you can leave isolation at 10am on the following Tuesday if you do not have any of these symptoms. You do not need to test before leaving self-isolation in NSW.

From this example, it seems that the eighth day is the final date provided in the letter (19^th Jan) and the day you can leave self-isolation.

There does not seem to be any information or guidance on what to do if you have a chronic condition, such as asthma or allergies, that means you have one of the listed symptoms often. It seems that it could be interpreted that you might be permanently in isolation!

That said, you are allowed to leave the place you are self-isolating “for the purposes of obtaining medical care…” (cl 5(a)(i)) and/or have someone enter the place where you are self-isolating “for medical or emergency purposes” (cl 5(b)(ii)). So it seems that if you have had covid and suffer the listed symptoms as a result of another health condition, obtaining a negative test and/or visiting your doctor or hospital might be the best way to exit self-isolation.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, February 2022. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.