The covid virgins club

They’ve only been studying this virus for a couple of years. But cellular immune responses are usually pretty long-lived. It does vary a lot from virus to virus, though. One bout of measles/vaccination will give you sterilizing immunity (you don’t catch it at all) for life whereas you need to continually re-up immunity to whooping cough and tetanus.

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um, so what does that say about covid? that doesn’t seem to answer NA’s question.

I’m wondering why some countries say that those under 50 without any underlying conditions don’t need the most recent booster. sounds like, they simply don’t know?

I’ve been parsing it as the risk posed by current strains of COVID to people under 50 who lack other health issues is so low that the benefit of additional vaccination is small.

Perhaps there’s also a shift in thought from the days when we were trying to slow propagation of the virus through the population to levels that wouldn’t overwhelm the medical system. The virus is endemic now, and we have treatments that reduce the problem of folks moving into ICU for extended stays.

If my doctor tells me to go get another booster, I will…preferably scheduled at a time when I can veg the day after, to recover.

I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s that covid is a lot less dangerous to people who have previously experienced it (either by vaccination or catching covid) and by now, everyone except very young children has been exposed. So the marginal value of additional exposure (via additional vaccinations) is a lot less than it was.

If you look at the pandemic in China, where most people’s only prior exposure was via the inferior Chinese vaccines, this strain seems pretty damn nasty. Working age people are in bed for weeks, and elderly people are dropping like flies. Or so I’ve read.

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It says that no one knows for sure.

ah, so a booster might be beneficial to people under 50. they just don’t know.

my guess is that even without the bivalent booster i would have gotten through covid okay. as to how much worse it would have been (if any) i have no idea.

Are there still supply constraints in other countries that might be affecting their recommendations?

I wouldn’t think so, but maybe? Or maybe they just haven’t updated their guidelines since the supply constraints eased? Or they don’t want to appear to be flip-flopping?

Just brainstorming.

I’d put money on this acting like the other coronaviruses in circulation, at least in terms of how long immunity lasts.

At some point we reach variant stability where mutations make it less transmissible, rather than more.

The part that is less clear is the long term severity. We don’t know how severe the endemic coronaviruses were across the age spectrum. We should know how they compare at young ages, but even that is difficult to compare if the mother transfers some immune response to the fetus.

Vaccine guidance has to be a complete guessing game for anyone at this point. Severe outcomes are losing credibility as complete patient histories regarding covid are becoming unknowable. How many vaccines did they have? How many infections? Time from last vaccine to symptomatic infection is maybe interesting, but the data will be garbage for the same unknowns.

So far so good on my virginity status but it’s only day 4 post exposure. Cross your fingers for me people.

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I tested positive 3 days after the person i caught it from had symptoms. They had symptoms 7 days post exposure though. I think 3 days is more the norm these days than 7.

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For the me people:
:crossed_fingers:

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although, i really have no idea when i caught it. the person i caught it from tested positive 2 days before i did but had symptoms a day before that, so i tested positive 3 days from their symptoms. i don’t know when they were positive though and think they likely were exposed 7 days before testing positive. that is, unless they caught it somewhere else mysteriously between that same time frame. we just know for absolute certainty that they were exposed to someone who later tested positive 7 days prior to them having symptoms.

the information i know for sure is i was negative the day before i tested positive according to the antigen test as i was testing every day at that point because i knew i was exposed. the person i caught it from wasn’t testing until a day after they had symptoms. so my timeline is flawed.

but i think the person i caught it from was around others before they had symptoms and didn’t give it to any of those people. just me and possibly their roommate who were living in the same house. if the roommate had it, it was minor. roommate said they felt a little sick for a few hours and never tested themself.

Eh, that means you didn’t have enough virus to be contagious at that point, but you may well have been positive. Testing negative after exposure but before testing positive is pretty normal.

yes, i know. i likely wasn’t really negative, but i was negative on an antigen test. so if i was positive, i was likely barely positive at that point. that means, 2 days before i was probably really negative.

i don’t have all the info to say how long it took me to contract it. i arrived here 5.5 days before testing positive. i don’t know in those 5.5 days when exactly i was exposed.

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Tests were clear yesterday and I’m rolling into the 7th day post exposure (if you call lunch the starting point).

Also - for the first time in many, many weeks - hot yoga didn’t absolutely destroy my energy levels partway through the class. So either I have anti-symptom COVID powers where all the symptons are opposite, or I’m not a walking COVID petri dish.

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you probably wasn’t actually exposed. the guy probably wasn’t contagious yet.

I also didn’t have reduced energy levels until I actually tested positive. I was fine the day before. the day I tested positive, I was also fine for most of it. Played a lot of tug of war with the dog. By nighttime I felt like I was going to die.

Out. Me and the kids all tested positive tonight. I’d been sick the end of last week, but tested negative. I don’t know if that was the start or not. My daughter was the one who decided to test today after she felt zonked this afternoon. I then tested me and my son for completeness, even though I feel pretty normal, other than being tired, which I always am.

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welcome to the cooler club.

I have a sore throat. I often have a sore throat in the morning. I’m going to a thing this evening that the host would prefer I test for, so I guess I’ll test this evening whether or not my throat clears up.

Still safe.

Dodged it being in my house. Never tested positive nor any symptoms.

Have been back at the office full time since the start of November. Going to concerts and eating out multiple times a week. So not just avoiding the world at all.

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