So last week I had covid! There are a lot of details but basically it was a very mild case (moderate fever one night + sniffles for ~2 days after). Fully recovered for almost a week now. Just for those of you who've never seen one, here's what a positive antigen self-test looks like.
Some of the details:
- Still not sure where/when I caught it. Possibly at a meetup I attended, though we were all tested at the door and the timing is a little tight... May never know. So far I have yet to track down anyone who either passed it to me or caught it from me.
- Although the direct health impact seems minor, it was a bit of a logistical nightmare because I attended a lunch with a bunch of people the same day my symptoms landed, right before Thanksgiving travel... It seriously derailed some people's plans! 😞
- I was double-vaxed, in fact triple - got my booster 4 days before my symptoms. Not quite in time to prevent it but I'm very optimistic the vaccines lightened my case!
- Quick timeline:
- Infected sometime before Sat Nov 20 - maybe meetup Thurs Nov 18?
- A tiny bit sniffly during the day Sat, then fever afternoon/eve. Took my first self-test Sat eve, negative 🙄
- Felt better Sun Nov 21 but still sniffly. Took another self-test "just to be sure", positive (I lol'd - "Oh ffs"). Visited CityMD, confirmed positive (antigen).
- Another self-test Tues Nov 23 +ve, then another Sat Nov 27 -ve. But dr said these weren't necessary (free to end quarantine w/o fever 10 days after symptom onset), I just did them out of curiosity.
Interestingly, although I went to the clinic seeking confirmation by a PCR test, the dr there claimed the antigen rapid tests are more reliable these days (probably only if you're symptomatic?): PCR can give more false positives due to old traces in your nose, or something? On the one hand he was just one dr, otoh he does work in a high-volume covid testing site (CityMD), draw your own conclusions.
If (if!) symptoms among the vaccinated and relatively healthy end up pretty consistently mild like mine, we may all move in the direction of treating covid like the flu (stay home when symptomatic/positive but otherwise carry on with life), with the exception that vaccination is less "nice to have" and more "required/extremely advisable". We'll see, long topic, but my case is consistent with that, I never even had a cough much less trouble breathing. Of course I could still end up with long-term effects but the fact I didn't even lose sense of smell seems encouraging...
If you're having trouble telling if you've lost sense of smell (mine is weak generally), try taking a whiff of your vanilla jar!
Judging purely from my experience, I don't generally regret the risk tradeoffs I've made in the last year. I've done a lot of socializing, travel, outings etc I'm very grateful for: it's easy to miss how beneficial these things are and how crazy-making sitting at home can get! That said - ideally I'd rather have never caught it at all, and of course I'm lucky not to be/live with someone who's at major risk.
My overall feeling remains that the pandemic presents an endless series of risk-assessment puzzles without clean answers, that it's natural for different people to arrive at different answers to. We should all try to respect others' safety, while also respecting different attitudes to risk.
Meanwhile I'm grateful for a pretty painless week and to be, as I understand the science, now invulnerable to all future diseases.