rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

Has anyone been pretty sure they've gotten it but consistently home tested negative throughout the bout?

If the control line shows up past the expiry date, your tests are very probably still good.

Just looked up the tests, they were extended to 2023-04-04, so still too old, but the reference line did show up.

xxpost The only way I learned I ever had it was back at the very start, when my Red Cross blood donation came back with confirmation of antibodies (something they were doing at the time). But I've never actually tested positive. Now, does that mean I've never had it since March 2020? Who knows. My symptoms back then were very mild and gone in two days and no one else got sick, and paranoia and suspicion with every sniffle aside over the subsequent years (!), I've never really been convinced I've had it again. And in between there have been supermarkets, stores, plenty of concerts, travel/airports, restaurants, sporting events, and so on.

My mom has spent much of the past couple of years traveling the world in her retirement, masking and testing as required/necessary, less so lately as those things have become less required/necessary, and she's never actually tested positive, either, or had any real reason to think she had it; she once came back from a trip visiting my sister in the UK and felt a little under the weather, but a few days of testing never came up positive (even though my sister tested positive soon after the visit, though her partner - with similar symptoms - never did). I dunno, I think there's still tons we don't know about it. My mom, for example, has hypothesized that as a pediatrician she was exposed to so many different coronaviruses over her career that maybe she had some sort of general baseline immunity. Or maybe she's just been weirdly lucky.

I think the CDC did a study of blood donors last fall that determined 96% of those 16 and over had covid antibodies.

96%!
I guess we all have had it to some degree at this point. I wonder if there's a better mechanism to determine how infectious anyone is at any stage, or if a coughing fit is just from a regular cold.

Motherfucker. My turn for round 2 — definitely a result of recent travels, probably from the plane ride home since first tickle in my throat showed up about 48 hrs later. Just cold/allergy type symptoms at the moment, I mostly tested because I WAS planning to take my kids up to see my septuagenarian parents this weekend. That's off now, but I'm somewhat optimistic I can just push it back 7-10 days.

So, more annoying than anything else, although I'm aware of the findings that repeat infections have some potential long-term impact on immune system etc.

do they? oh great. i've had it three times. or four. i can't even remember now. maybe there's a memory impact...

I actually don't think that's a widely accepted conclusion, fortunately (there is always the possibility that a later infection could be more severe, but there were many scientists critical of the study that suggested multiple COVID infections actually put you at larger risk): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/repeat-covid-infections-health-risks

regardless though ,hope you get better soon tipsy, and sorry to hear about your disrupted trip to meet the folks :(

I guess we all have had it to some degree at this point.

getting the vaccine would be enough to create antibodies

I actually don't think that's a widely accepted conclusion

Good, glad to hear that. tbh I have not been following the ongoing flood of COVID studies.

xpost I think they can distinguish between antibodies from the virus andbodies from the vaccine.

That's how I learned I'd had an asymptomatic case in September.

Well, round #2 wasn’t much of anything. A little congestion, no fever, no cough, etc. Already testing negative. Who knows the combination of factors that kept it so light, but I’ll take it.

As a public service for those comparing symptoms, here's where I'm at on day 2 (?). Began with a sore throat, kind of froggy, but that was my only real symptom, and I kind of assumed it was due to the poor air quality. But it persevered past ibuprofen, so I figured, what the hell, that's why we have all those tests. Confirmation line appeared almost instantly, I banished myself to the basement. Last night I woke up around 2am a little achy, but for some reason my throat wasn't that bad anymore, though I did/do now have a modestly stuffy (dry) nose, and once in while a fleeting (dry) cough. The most dramatic new symptom was a spike up to a 101.3 temperature, but weirdly not the usual attendant chills. In all, I feel a bit worse than I did/do after each of the vaccines. I'm going to try and get Paxlovid, but if the side effects are worse than the actual illness I may just ride it out.

Oh, fwiw, this is the first time I officially tested positive for Covid. I knew I had antibodies, but all the past years of exposure or symptoms never resulted in an actual positive test.

So much for Pitchfork Fest, though.

Sorry, Josh. Hope it gets better soon. Yours sounds like my first case, which proceeded along similar lines.

Sorry, Josh!

I blame Greece.

I got sick after going to Greece too, but I'm pretty sure mine actually came from a connecting flight thru ... Chicago!

Nice virtual doctor just prescribed me Paxlovid. I figure might as well start taking it, in the off chance I have one of those stubborn cases that sticks around for a while.

Round three here, after a trip to CA during which all my friends got infected also.

Another friend just came home from a family trip, his wife is + even though the rest of the family isn't. Travel seems like a common denominator in most of the recent cases I know about.

Round three here, after a trip to CA during which all my friends got infected also.

― ian, Thursday, July 20, 2023 7:11 AM (thirty-four minutes ago)

...all but one! ;-)

I got sick after going to Greece too, but I'm pretty sure mine actually came from a connecting flight thru ... Chicago!

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra

how can you tell?

Steve, I am SO GLAD to hear that.

Besides the changes in smell/taste, has anyone experienced any symptoms that feel definitively different from a regular cold/flu?

The first time I (unknowingly) had covid, March 2020, my *only* symptoms were loss of smell and taste, which was weird for sure. This time, it feels like a cold, more or less, but with no sneezing and coughing (maybe that's the DayQuil, but even pre-medicine there was not much of that happening). Like, if I did not know I had Covid, I would not think that any of my symptoms were at all uncommon or cause for concern.

My cough lingered longer than it should, but I haven't detected any other troubles.

The intense malaise, for me. Was like having glandular fever and it hung around for so long (like over 2 weeks). But the loss of taste was the absolute bollocks worst. I lost 5kg because the thought of food was just revolting.

Maybe malaise is the wrong word there - fatigue, weakness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cveQWnHAxug

Lethargy

Day 3-ish, managed to sleep more or less all night before my throat woke me up around 4am, which I assume was the NyQuil wearing off. Kind of feels like I've been swallowing gravel, a very strep-throat thing, enough so that I did a bunch of googling to see if strep could give you a false covid positive (no; for starters, strep is bacterial). I've had two doses of Paxlovid so far. By all accounts it can work pretty fast; I currently have no fever at all, so maybe I have that to thank. Sore throat and stuffy nose is all I have at the moment. The stuffy nose has pretty much been the extent of anything respiratory so far.

how can you tell?

I mean obviously in a travel situation it's impossible to know where one picks something up. But the onset of symptoms tracked with me catching it on the last day of the trip, on the way home. And on the last flight from Chicago to Knoxville there was a guy sitting in the row right behind me doing these tremendous hacking coughs and nose honks, unmasked of course, all the way there. He didn't seem well. I don't know for sure that he was my source, but he's my prime suspect.

I don't have a prime suspect, and anywhere I was exposed I assume my family was, too, and they're not sick. Even in 2023, it's all still kinda muddy.

Oh that's my other bit of circumstantial evidence — my wife was everywhere I was on the trip too, EXCEPT for that last flight home, when we were assigned separate seats. She was about 8 rows in front of me, maybe outside the sneeze/cough zone?

Yes, a month ago I was in the Bahamas in an airport shuttle bus that broke down; we had to shift into multiple taxis.

I sat up front with the driver because there wasn't room otherwise. Eight people in a minivan. Then we spent six hours in a severely weather-congested Miami airport, including several hours in a grounded plane. My wife and kids and I had widely separated seats, due to the nature of things these days.

The weather delay meant that the pilot and crew "timed out," so we went back to the terminal and and and.

I wanted a drink (a reasonably human wish under the circumstances) and waited in a long line at the one functioning bar in the terminal.

Got home and tested positive a day later.

Not sure how "contract tracing" would help here because it could have been any of the approximately 5,000 people I met that day.

Sorry, not ranting, just recounting.

We were pretty much within five feet of each other at all times for most of the trip home, where any exposure likely occurred, so who knows. Because like you said, it could have been the coughing guy, or it could have been any of the 4999 non-coughing people.

Josh, exactly. I admire (but cannot emulate) the good intentions of people who are still like "don't go anywhere," as well as those who are like "be very very careful and wipe everything and wear a mask even when you're alone in the shower," but that is not where most people are these days. There is a currently active thread for that.

Given that most people nowadays are out there doing stuff? Well, the pathogens are out there too and they are doing what they do. As has been noted, they want to be contagious but not fatal.

I've found even the biggest 'covid scolds' I knew a year or two ago aren't even that way anymore now. but I don't begrudge anybody who still wants to take the extra layers of caution and still can't fathom why someone else's mask is so *offensive* to some people

otm

Best of luck with it JiC! Sounds very un-fun :(

I'm going back to keeping my head down, not going into the office, masking a bit more, for the week or so before I go on my first trip abroad in 8 years. do NOT want any bug to spoil that if I can help it! also gonna filter-mask on the plane, maybe airport depending how long a wait.

I know a family of three that have had it 2x in the past 5 weeks. They've also had it like 6x at this point.

Do I need to mention that they were the most careful/cautious people we knew in 2020-2021? including one time they drove by our house and just threw a gift for us out the car window in the brief second that the window rolled down before speeding away lol....? I think I need to mention that, sorry.

(ack wrong thread, belongs in the plague thread)

Day three-ish, and the majority of my symptoms remain run of the mill. Mostly a modestly stuffy nose at this point, still no coughing or sneezing, but I will say that the one other consistent and most conspicuous symptom that's stuck around, and the one that made me test in the first place, is a relatively uncomfortable sore throat, whose return is usually a signal to me that my medicine has worn off. But other than that it has not been that bad (knock on wood). I haven't had a fever since Thursday, though it's hard to tell how much of that is the overlapping effectiveness of both the otc stuff I've been taking (ibuprofen, dayquil/nyquil), plus the Paxlovid.

When I had it in Jan, sore throat was unbearable. Everything else pretty much par for the course fever, aches etc. Solidarity, but sounds similar to my experience!

End of day four and I pretty much have no symptoms. Maybe the slightest of headaches and a little dizziness right now? But that could just be from either the Paxlovid or staring at a fucking screen all day while I'm locked away.

Tested for the first time since Wednesday afternoon, and I still have a very faint positive line. So that doesn't really count, right? (asked a friend of mine once.)

most experts I read said faint line = a line and still positive

unless the line appeared like, hours later as opposed to within the 15-30 minutes that it's supposed to