Since late April 2021, my entire household has been fully-vaccinated for COVID-19. We’ve been following local mask mandates, and wearing masks indoors. Unfortunately, in early September, my fully-vaccinated healthy 18-year-old daughter tested positive for COVID-19. 70% of her college campus was vaccinated, and they required masks indoors, except when eating and drinking. She came home for 10 days of isolation, as required by the campus. For 5 of those days she had a fever and flu-like symptoms. I know every household’s situation is different, but being prepared and ready for a COVID-19 positive diagnosis can help lower stress if it happens.
My tips on how to prepare for a COVID-19 case in your home:
- Have 10 days worth of meals stored in your kitchen (if possible). These can be canned meals, soups, pastas, frozen dinners, etc. Just be ready in case you can’t go to the grocery store. Although, remember you can arrange for grocery delivery, if necessary.
- If you have pets, have 10 days worth of pet food stored in your home.
- Have extra orange juice stored in the freezer. If someone has COVID-19, they will need a lot of fluids such as orange juice.
- Stock up on tissues and on medications commonly used for fevers and flu symptoms like Tylenol and Dayquil. Make sure you have enough of these to last a couple of weeks (or for multiple people, if more are infected).
- Stock up on soap, hand-sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes.
- Set aside one bedroom and one bathroom for the infected person’s private use (if this is possible in your household).
- Have a tray available to bring meals to and from the infected person.
- Have at-home COVID-19 test kits, or information and access to regular COVID-19 testing for all other household members. My household went to drive-through testing sites provided by my county every 3 days to make sure we weren’t asymptomatic carriers.
- Have enough face masks for all, and make sure you and the infected person wear those when in the same room.
- Keep an updated calendar. Whether on paper or digitally, during this pandemic time, keep an updated calendar of where you’ve been. This will make it easier to notify people you saw in the days prior to testing COVID-19 positive, so they know to be tested as well.
- Follow your CDC and local health department guidelines as to how long the infected person should isolate and close contacts should quarantine. At the time of my daughter’s diagnosis, it was 10 days. My family cancelled every in-person activity for 10 days, including in-person work, and moved all that we could online.
My daughter fully recovered, and no one else in the household was infected during the 10 days of isolation and quarantine. Being well prepared made it easier for us to quickly quarantine and stay as safe and as healthy as possible when we received the news of a positive COVID diagnosis in our household.
I’m so glad your daughter is better and that the rest of you didn’t get sick. Thank you for being so responsible during the quarantine period, and for these superb tips. I’m particularly glad you noted that people should carefully keep their calendars in order to help with contact tracing and otherwise notifying people of potential exposures. Stay safe!
Thank you Julie! Yes, keeping an up to date calendar during these times can really help with contract tracing!
It’s the news no parent wants to receive. But I’m so relieved that your daughter and family are all doing well. It’s an impressive list of COVID preparedness, and I know this will help many families.
Mask wearing, testing, and sanitizing have become a regular part of our lives. But those habits are for daily living. When someone becomes ill, that’s an entirely different situation. While it will still be stressful, having some of the supplies on hand in advance will make care logistics less stressful.
Thank you, Linda. Yes, preparing in advance and having supplies ready definitely reduced the stress of the situation in my family’s case.
This post will be invaluable to anyone facing this situation and I’m so glad your daughter recovered and your quarantine measures worked so well. Having a plan ahead of time when something like this comes up makes all the difference, thank you for creating this!
Thank you, Lucy. Planning ahead makes all the difference in so many aspects of life, I hope this post will help others to be prepared.
Happened to my fully-vaccinated daughter as well. She lives in an apartment in NYC with her husband. So, we took a different route and her husband, after getting a negative test, came out to CT to stay with us until the 10 days was over.
Have to say, while we are very grateful she didn’t end up in the hospital, I would exactly call this thing mild. She was pretty sick with the fever, aches, throat soreness, congestion, loss of smell (which is lingering), and tons of exhaustion.
Hard to imagine how to cope when Mom goes down LOL! In the meantime, wonderful tips. Glad she’s ok!!
Seana, thanks for commenting! I’m so glad your daughter is recovering, and that your son-in-law didn’t become infected. His staying with you for the 10 days was a good way to keep him safe.
Great advice, Nancy. So many of us just hope it won’t happen without making plans in case it does.
Thank you, Janet! You’re right, we all hope it won’t happen, but if we make plans just in case, we’ll be better prepared and a little less stressed, if it does.