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.

“Heh. It's trying to hurt me. That's cute.” —this guy's immune system, when infected with COVID