Discourse lets you change your answer in a poll, so in theory we could keep this up-to-date.
How many times have you had covid? (if you aren’t sure, make your best guess.)
- I’m still a covid virgin
- Once
- Twice
- Three or more times
0 voters
Missing the “not sure” option. 
To wit: I think I had it–but I also could’ve had a variant strain of corona virus–in November 2019. I did see a doctor who gave me some stuff to deal with the symptoms (primarily a severe, hacking cough at night).
So I put myself in the “COVID Virgin” option since the poll seems to be more of “confirmed acquisition” of COVID for the other options.
I absolutely included it:
There are too many ways in which you could be unsure (have I ever had covid? Once, twice? I know i had it once but what about that other thing…) for me to include them all in the poll.
I suppose you could reframe the question “How many times have you tested positive for COVID?”
Lots of people test more than once during a single bout of illness, to know when they are safe to leave isolation, though.
Also.
then I think you should change your vote.
Hmmmm… unsurprising poll results from a group of people highly familiar with risk assessment/avoidance.
And very much a lack of science-deniers. Mostly STEM graduates, more coastal than flyover.
Also, a group of people almost all of whom can work from home. A supermarket cashier is much more likely to have caught covid, even if they got every vaccine they were eligible for and avoided as many unnecessary risks as they could.
And I haven’t looked, but I bet the actuaries who have had covid have more school-aged children than the ones who haven’t.
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highly vaccinated group with relatively low exposure is still around 50% should say a lot.
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While I agree it highlights how contagious COVID is, I wonder how many of those infected were by high exposure family members. Anecdotal but I’ve heard of a lot of healthcare workers who got it from their daycare/school attending kids.
in the early days of covid, it was hard to get a test. my father definitely had covid in a nursing home, but he couldn’t get tested unless he left the nursing home with the understanding that they wouldn’t let him back in. found out later via antibody testing for sure, but it was already pretty sure.
my sister got covid despite working from home and living alone… mother got covid despite being retired and not having kids in the house. just one exposure is all it takes. i’m the special snowflake in the family. i feel less special looking at the results here though 
As of last fall, (Sept 2022) the results were:
Never: 52%
Once: 36%
Twice: 12%
Three or more times: 0%
Now (Jan 2023) seems like a good time to update this. Remember that you can change your vote.
Still don’t believe 52% Never.
Well, it’s not Measles. Also, not always debilitating or noticeable, meaning people may have had it and not known it (but spread to others nevertheless).
guess i need to change my vote now.
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I can believe that ~25% had COVID but didn’t realize it (asymptomatic, dismissed as cold/allergies, not enough virus shed to register positive on a home test…)
i don’t believe this is that common based on my very biased view that i had it and most definitely knew it.
if it’s “not enough virus shed to register”, did you really have covid?
i’m going with no, not really.
When my father had COVID (tested positive the day before he was originally scheduled for his first vaccine), he was reportedly asymptomatic.
I only know about my second case because I got a PCR test after my wife tested positive. We weren’t doing the home tests at that point.