Our evening supper included a timely discussion topic:  positive COVID tests.

What do you do if you might have been exposed through someone who has just been diagnosed? 

What should you do?  Where do you get tested?  What if you have no symptoms?

What does your employer do?  What do other employees do?  What does the employer have to pay to the employee if he can’t work?  Can an employee say that he is fearful, and doesn’t want to come in because of the exposure risk? 

What about those who live in the house with the person who might have been exposed?  Do they all need to be tested?  When?

With some digging, we found some answers online—but there is still room for some judgement calls about how conservative to be.  We also found inconsistencies between states’ guidelines and requirements. 

Two of them argued—vehemently—about how dangerous the virus truly is, and at what age people should be concerned.  (Turns out our daughter is much more concerned than our son, about my husband and my vulnerability.) 

Perhaps we’ve been facing this virus and its accompanying shutdowns and closures for too long now, because the silver lining I find in all this is kind of strange.  I am oddly pleased that the young adults in my household were fairly well informed.  They could each defend their position, cite their sources and rattle off statistics….and all of that is, of course, a good thing!