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Negative PCR, next day positive antigen

I have a family of six. We think we got exposed around the new year or eve. My oldest daughter (10) woke up with a headache on Tuesday 1/4. Tested positive on PCR with sample taken on 1/6. Mine came negative. I am vaccinated and boosted. My younger daughter (7), my wife and my olde son (5) took PCR on 1/7, all negative. All of us took RAPID antigen on Saturday 1/8. My daughters both came positive, the rest of us including our youngest son (21 months) came negative. What to do now? When should we retest? My younger daughter’s negative PCR but positive rapid the next day is puzzling. With 4 young children, isolation is not easy. Masking at home would have been possible but we gave up on it eventually.

Most important thing - none of us has any symptoms at this time.
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Avatar universal
God Bless you i know how hard it is :( I am sure you all gonna recover and be healthy and live normal life again.
Helpful - 0
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Thank you so much. So far so good with the exception of the disruption from normal activities.
207091 tn?1337709493
When you are talking about isolation, do you mean isolating at home, or isolating your positive daughters away from the rest of the family?

I think isolating the positive ones away from the others is still a good idea, with one parent taking care of them, and the other parent taking care of the ones who are negative. I think the negative ones should still isolate from others outside the household, though, even if CDC guidelines don't necessarily call for that.

Testing is confusing everyone. I have a lot of friends who are negative on one test, and positive on the next, and vice versa, within a day, sometimes hours. The PCR is the gold standard, supposedly, but there's still a big question mark on things with Omicron.

Good luck. I can't imagine how hard this must be. I hope everyone stays healthy, even if they are positive.
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Thank you. Very helpful comment. My 10 year old can easily isolate but my 7 year old, impossible. In any case, we are all so far very healthy. Unfortunately, the girls can’t go back to school till 1/18 and the boy since he is asymptomatic, the school district has a crazy policy that the quarantine period for him is twice (20 days!). So he can’t go back to his kindergarten until 1/26 but a negative test on or after 1/19 can shorter that to 1/24. The part that sucks the most is my household has been doing all the very right things (except that I couldn’t convince to have the kids vaccinated, now she is convinced) but we had sets of visitors or 12/31 and 1/1 with the guests all testing positive on 1/2 and they had symptoms when they visited. That’s what’s been extremely frustrating to me and I can’t forgive such irresponsibility on their part and my wife for not being more vigilant as they are her family.  It’s not easy for me to scrutinize my in-laws but she knew they were potentially infected.
Wow 20 days?

It's crazy to me that school policies vary so much from place to place.

That's unfortunate about your in-laws, and your wife. I don't know how I'd react in your shoes, either. My elderly mother was exposed (and thankfully is fine) by a friend who's daughter visited over Christmas and was symptomatic, and I'm having a hard time with that. I can't imagine family members who I know.

I'm sorry your family is dealing with this. I hope everyone stays healthy.
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