When Can I Go Back to Work After Flu
W e accept all known colleagues who struggle into piece of work when they are unwell, leaving a trail of germs that threaten the health of their co-workers – and so wait praise for their fortitude. Maybe y'all are one of them. So, should you do the decent thing and go home?
Co-ordinate to the Office for National Statistics, 141m working days were lost in 2018, with modest illnesses such as colds the nearly mutual reason for absence. Although the days lost to sickness have been falling since the early 00s, with a precipitous dip since the 2008 recession, the reason is probably non that nosotros are getting healthier, but that we are more worried most job security. Presenteeism has tripled to a record high since 2010, co-ordinate to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in 2018.
Still, it tin can be hard to know when yous should stay at home and when it is OK to go to work. "A lot of it depends on what kind of job you do," says Amir Khan, a GP. "If y'all're working with people who are at risk, or with children or in healthcare, you lot should stay at home."
With vomiting and diarrhoea – the norovirus winter vomiting bug, for example – information technology is more clear cut. The bug is brusque-lived, but highly contagious, so you should stay at home for 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting and diarrhoea. Even so, the GP and writer Ann Robinson points out that some people tin have persistent diarrhoea after a stomach bug. "It can take up to three weeks to go dorsum to normal," she says. "At that place'due south no real reason to stay at habitation, as long as you're not dehydrated. But you lot practice have a social responsibility to wash your hands properly after going to the toilet."
It is less easy to know when to stay at home with a cold. Robinson thinks that if yous are well enough to become up and nearly, yous are probably well plenty to go into work, while taking precautions to effort to avoid spreading it.
"You should stay at dwelling if you have an illness that involves a fever, because that usually means it'south still in its contagious form," says Khan. "If yous're sneezing and coughing, you are spreading disease, just you will have had it for a couple of days earlier you knew almost it, and that's when information technology's at its most contagious. These diseases are designed to spread."
A cold tin can be contagious for several days after symptoms appear, and even up to 2 weeks – but information technology would be unrealistic to expect to take ii weeks off work for a cold. If you lot catch flu, wait to be infectious for up to a week. Co-ordinate to the NHS, you are nigh likely to give it to someone in the start 5 days.
If you are sick, in that location are measures you tin can take to try to prevent your germs spreading too liberally. There are also things you tin can practice to avoid picking up infections.
"Your risk of catching something will be directly proportional to the proximity to the ill person," says Robinson. "If they insist on throwing used tissues in a bin well-nigh y'all, I would move away, or get in clear that it's a highly hating thing to practise. Keep your distance. Don't share cups."
You should also launder your hands regularly, particularly before eating.
Nasal sprays are marketed equally a way to prevent getting a cold, but Robinson is sceptical. "There is a rational basis for spraying a saline solution – zero more than expensive than saltwater spray – upwardly your nose at nighttime, because information technology's true that this is the way the virus enters your system. I'k not aware of whatever good testify, simply it makes a trivial bit of sense. What you're really doing when you lot spray saline upward your nose is perking up the cilia, the little hairs in your nose, which are an important line of defence force. You're not actually 'washing out' a virus."
Instead, work on supporting your allowed system. Become enough sleep, manage stress and have regular exercise. "Have a healthy diet with lots of dark-green vegetables," says Khan. "Even though there isn't much of information technology at the moment, sunlight is vivid for the immune system, then, if yous can, become outdoors and become some sun."
Khan comes into contact with lots of coughing and sneezing people in his surgery. "I am and so cautious," he says nigh his own wellness. He recommends conveying a bottle of hand-sanitiser gel. "It won't kill the norovirus, simply information technology will kill the common cold and cough viruses."
What if someone around yous is spluttering? "Use the gel on your hands considering, chances are, they've touched something you're virtually to touch," he advises. "Put some gel on a tissue and wipe down whatever surfaces that other people may exist using, such as your workstation."
He also recommends wiping door handles and chairs regularly. Cold viruses can live for upwards to a calendar week on hard surfaces, such as desks or kitchen worktops, and flu viruses tin can survive for about 24 hours.
But you can't eliminate the risk – and if you do come downwards with a bad common cold, you may not have picked information technology upwards from the person sneezing at the desk-bound adjacent to you. "You will accept been exposed to things on your daily commute into work or in a coffee shop, so it'south not really fair to socially ostracise an individual," says Robinson. "You're exposed to viruses all the fourth dimension."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/19/stay-in-bed-or-struggle-in-work-illness
0 Response to "When Can I Go Back to Work After Flu"
Post a Comment