Maybe. It’s interesting how many viruses we’ve historically lumped into the “common cold”.
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To be fair, we didn’t have tests for them until recently, and they all have rather similar symptoms.
Anyway, I’m still negative. Taking more risks, though, so we’ll see how long it lasts.
i took a LOT of covid risks today. i went to the 9/11 museum in manhattan. turns out, so did many many many other people. it was packed and there was no social distancing whatsoever. then i went to a bar in manhattan and 2 bars on staten island after. this is probably more covid risk than i’ve taken in one day since covid started. 
Anecdotal chatter says covid is on the upswing again.
I went to a wedding today… hope that bivalent booster does its thing!
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COVID wastewater data in my area has it about as low as it has ever been.
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Ditto. Well, wastewater values were lower in that wonderful window when the vaccines really worked, but it’s about as low as it’s been since then.
I do have a couple of friends staying home with covid or close exposure, though.
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my brother’s young son had a terrible cold last week. They ended up in the ER with severe chest congestion/breathing problems. Tested negative for Covid, RSV, and Flu. which was a surprise to everyone. They did give him some steroids which helped a lot.
feels like 10% of sickness is one of the big bad 3. then 90% are just ‘bad cold’.
good news is he recovered within a few days.
add: they all had covid last year at this time.
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i didn’t know there was a test for RSV. do they always test you for that when you go to urgent care? i think my mother was just told her covid test was negative. i don’t know if they tested her for rsv.
she is still sick 11 days later.
I feel like we just spent 3 years trying to understand and feel safe about illness.
only to find out we still dont know much and are not safe from illness.
My experience is no. I got pretty sick in August and only had a Covid test, but to be fair I hadn’t developed a fever when I was at urgent care. (It happened the next day.) when I spoke to my PCP via telehealth she just said it was viral but didn’t feel the need to test.
My daughter OTOH had the same virus and ended up in the ER when we couldn’t reach her dr. She was tested for flu, Covid, and RSV, but all were negative.
Even if there is a test for RSV (and i think there is) you treat adults with RSV the same as you treat adults with a cold. There’s no specific treatment, no special rsv-aimed medicine. So i doubt adults get tested often.
(Because babies can get very sick from RSV, they may get tested as a “heads up, this might get worse”. But for adults you wouldn’t do anything special until/unless things got worse, because it’s usually not very serious for adults.)
Like Lucy said, RSV is generally mild in adults (or at least was pre-covid). In before times, you probably had only heard of RSV if you were a parent of a sick baby. I haven’t heard anything about RSV being more sever in adults post-covid.
well whatever my mother has doesn’t seem to want to go away. it isn’t severe in needing to be hospitalized, but 11 days and still going is bad for a cold.
Did she develop bronchitis from the initial cold? I think that can linger well after a virus has been cleared.
she went to urgent care last week and they said her lungs were clear and they didn’t say anything about bronchitis. not sure if that’s still the case now.
I often have that experience with a cold. That’s why I’m so frightened of covid.
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covid had me good for 2 weeks, and the lingering cough didn’t clear until 3-4 weeks. Same with the bf.
The cough was the worst I’ve ever had. Severe dry cough. Cough cough cough. Until my throat got swollen and then my head hurt from all the coughing. And then some more. Took an overdose of cough suppressants everyday which did nothing beyond placebo. Ate cough drops like candy. Drank warm water constantly for weeks (made my skin all nice and glossy). And I got sick of drinking water that I had to add sweetener to it.
Yeah, for what it’s worth, I tend to have colds for a long time and then I had long Covid.
Sample size = 1