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How Bad Is a Second (or Third or Fourth) Case of Covid?
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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I don't think I've gotten my first case yet.
I'm having it for the first time. Fully vaccinated, on day 5 of miserable. Worst store throat of my life that transitioned into sinus congestion. I can't imagine what it would have been like if it chose to go down to my lungs instead.
Because I'm 51 with a history of asthma I was able to start antivirals. Paxlovid mouth is brutal, but since I've also lost taste and smell, I'm getting used to it. While I understand why some people give up on the meds because of the taste, I'd rather suffer through that than risk worsening illness. I've found holding small pieces of taffy on my tongue to slowly suck on has been the best relief.
I work in healthcare and have always been conscious of protecting myself, but had a normal human moment last week and went to a concert unmasked. Be careful out there.
I haven't either. I feel living in a low population density area and getting re-vaccinated every year is contributing to that, though.
No COVID for me. I work from home and don’t socialise much. Also have not had a cold or flu since 2019. Fully vaccinated.
Me neither, but I'm honestly not sure. I got sick a month or two ago, mostly just felt like aches and fatigue, pretty much no respiratory element at all. Except I lost 80%-ish of my sense of smell and taste until earlier this week (if it's even fully recovered, I'm honestly not sure).
Was that COVID? I didn't test positive for it, but maybe I waited too long to think to do it. I wish I knew for sure.
What kind of test did you use? The rapid tests are not always very accurate. A negative result might not mean that you do not have it. And yes, the time of taking the test / day of infection does make a difference. The loss of smell and taste does sound like it might have been covid.
I have heard that the newer strains don't show up on the tests, depending on the test. I got it recently, tested negative but it was my second time so I could recognize it and be fairly certain.
I tested positive in 2020 about two weeks before I got my first dose of vaccine. I was asymptomatic the entire time, only got tested because I had a medical procedure coming up. If it weren't for that, I probably would think I'd never had it either
Story time: My daughter got it near the end of finals week at university, and my wife and I drove her home - 5 hours is a closed up car - on what was probably her first symptomatic day. None of us were masked because none of us knew. She coughed once or twice, but mostly slept on the way home (as she usually does after a week of exams). I almost joked with her after one cough that she'd caught the 'vid. Next morning she woke up with a fever and tested, not actually expecting...positive. She quarantined in her room for 5 days, and all three of us pretty much didn't go out for 10 days and we delayed holiday celebrations with the grandparents for two weeks. Neither my wife nor I were ever symptomatic. We used the two remaining tests we had on day 3 after the car ride and both tested negative, but decided the full quarantine was still safest.
Thinking back to the early New York outbreak, I remember reading an article in (April? May?) that semi-random population testing (I say semi because it was voluntary) for serum antibodies that covered multiple counties showed that around half of the people who tested positive for past Covid exposure had indicated that they had not suffered any symptoms of illness in the prior 3 months. The supposition was that up to 50% of the population had experienced an infection asymptomatically. While odd, it possibly explained why the spread was so rapid - people who were asymptomatic may have simply been vectors to infect many others as they didn't quarantine (or, likely, mask since masks were in very short supply at the time). Regardless, I'm getting an XBB.1.5 vaccine when it's released. Whether I got it or it magically missed me the first time, I have no desire to join the symptomatic club.
Yeah I remember being in the airport in January 2020 a week after starting a new treatment regimen for an autoimmune condition consisting of high dose intravenous steroids, and emailing my doctor that I was masking up, "But I'm sure that thing from China isn't over here yet."
Hindsight: yes it was. It was definitely everywhere already, just most of the people exposed weren't getting deadly ill.
Similarly, I am all over those vaccines. I don't have room for a bad bout of Covid in my life.
“Heh. It's trying to hurt me. That's cute.” —this guy's immune system, when infected with COVID
The grand irony is that my immune system is actually a giant bag of dicks most of the time. I spent the majority of 2020 receiving a course of high dose intravenous steroids to treat an autoimmune condition. That treatment regimen wrapped in October 2020.
Prior to that, we all - my doctors, my family, my coworkers - thought that if I got Covid, it was gonna be really really bad. Then I actually got it and it was a nothingburger lol
(I actually think I just got a really low infectious dose. I was with a patient who had tested negative the previous day, so I was only wearing a surgical mask. The patient tested positive on a repeat test the day after I was with them. Patient's only symptom was "I really don't feel well" and, you know, kidney failure. But the kidney problems had started for them before getting Covid.)