Íøºì±¬ÁÏ

My boss is vaxxed and boosted (as am I), and her whole family had a breakthrough infection over Christmas. Because her family has so much immunity, they are hanging out with more groups of friends and extended family maskless.. I'm an at-risk person, and I want to be able to go work at her house again like I did when her family was still in a relative

Without having access to very advanced scientific equipment and technical support from research scientists, it is difficult to know of an individual’s level of viral shedding at a given moment. Some persons who are up-to-date with vaccination may get infected and shed the virus but also not have much symptoms—the duration of shedding of virus may also be short (<5 days and this is why the CDC has limited isolation for the up-to-date vaccinated to 5 days) but in some rarer instances may be prolonged (>7 days). The commercial tests that are now available (both PCR and rapid antigen tests) are not very good at measuring the amount of infectious virus being shed.

So, you are up-to-date with your vaccinations and that is the best that you can personally do. What else can you do at your boss’ home to improve (reduce) risk?  You can open windows and increase the indoor air with ventilation of more fresh air to the indoors. You can also have a HEPA filter in the room(s) to clean the air. If there was a recent party at the house, you should immediately have the rooms ventilated to let fresh air indoors.

The virus is transmitted through the exhaled breath. So, if you think about the virus risk like you think about smoking in the indoors, perhaps you can visualize all the different ways that you would clear the air to remove the smoke.  These would be ways that you can also decrease the presence of the virus in the indoor air.

 


Did you find this answer helpful? Subscribe to keep up with all things Lifelong Learning.