“People get confused with secondary contact. They think that they must go into quarantine because my friend's cousin has got it. You can't get it directly via a third party. Your primary contact first has to have Covid-19 before you have to worry.”
He said some patients call in a panic asking if they should isolate because their family member's friend has it, but he stressed that the virus is only passed through face-to-face interaction.
“If your primary contact has been in contact with someone who is confirmed to have Covid-19, they then need to go into quarantine.”
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) defines primary or close contact as "face-to-face contact within one metre or in a closed space for more than 15 minute".
"You will only have a laboratory test performed if you develop symptoms within 10 days of your last close contact with a person with Covid-19 who is considered infectious, i.e. able to transmit infection.
"A person with COVID-19 is considered infectious from two days before to 10 days after they became ill."