Inside Medicine. What Are You Seeing? [COVID-19 medical news]

One more confirmation of the extended timeframe. Vaccinated exposure to vaccinated breakthrough colleague Wednesday afternoon and first positive test was the following Thursday (at home test) - so 8 days. Negative on Tuesday and Wednesday. Confirmed with PCR positive on Friday. Good news is only mild cold symptoms and fatigue but passed within a week.

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CDC suggests getting tested 3-5 days after exposure. (for those fully vaccinated)

We test at 6 days

IIRC, there’s post-exposure prophylactic treatment available to high risk people who have been exposed. Maybe your friend can ask her doctor if she qualifies.

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This is the new reality. We will all likely be exposed. The first time is pretty stressful, but you get over it when you don’t get the disease. The subsequent ones feel less so. I remember being exposed at work pre-vaccine. We were all on edge. Being vaccinated should give everyone in the group a fairly high level of confidence, even the one who might be at higher risk. Hang in there!

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Pre-vaccine, I was exposed to a symptomatic person who was un-masked. I was wearing two surgical masks. I was very unnerved when I learned he was sick and Covid positive. Fortunately, I did not test positive or have any symptoms.

If I’ve been exposed since that time, I am not aware of it. I’ve had 3 doses of Pfizer.

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The person w/ cold symptoms should get tested as it often manifests as cold-like symptoms in the vaccinated. I had a similar situation with a dinner party on Saturday; one person tested positive Tuesday (knew she had an exposure at work, no symptoms). I had mild allergy like symptoms so tested today, day 5, negative. No one else has any symptoms. Note if you have symptoms no need to wait to test. Only if you are asymptomatic should you wait at least 5, preferably 7 days. I think it’s a mystery why some times the entire party seems to get it, other times no one does. We are all vaccinated, but some of us were vaccinated very early on. I don’t know if anyone has had a booster, but other than the one health care worker probably not. Of course we are not out of the woods yet.

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Just an FYI

If we had inexpensive rapid tests, a 10-pack could allow one test to be used every day from day 2 to 11.

One test at 5 days risks missing an asymptomatic infection that becomes detectable and contagious on day 6 or later. One test at 7 days risks missing an asymptomatic infection that becomes contagious early but no longer is detectable by day 7.

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Right! And, even if they only had 80% sensitivity, the volume would make up for that. I think the FDA is not doing a good job of weighing test accuracy with price and availability. If a test is wrong 1 out of 5 times, but it’s a dollar and you can test 5 days in a row, there’s a low likelihood that they’d all be wrong. In a perfect world we would have approved tests at a given “good enough” threshold and tested every day. An asymptomatic infection caught 2 days late is way better than one never caught because they were never tested.

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So far no one has tested positive. Let’s see what the next few days bring.

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Check that you’re tests aren’t these.

No, not that test.

Link was broken, btw, but the recalled tests are called Ellume.

The BinaxNow tests are $14 for 2 pack on walmart.com. Agree that $7 per test is not cheap enough for most people in the US to do rapid testing frequently and it’s much better that they are free in the UK, but at that price I did choose to stock up on a bunch of tests and have been able to offer them to people who needed testing. I also thought at $7 per test, it could be worth having everyone who is coming over for a dinner party or Thanksgiving or whatever test before gathering together inside for extended periods of time. Walmart has plenty in stock at that price and can do overnight delivery. I hope that helps, and that you and your family/friends all stay healthy!

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I saw the Binax tests on Walmart quite some time ago, and they were sold out. They are sold out now too, unfortunately.

Really? That’s odd. I checked before typing that they are still in stock and while I was at it, I ordered another two boxes. The transaction went through fine. Maybe I bought the very last 2 boxes :joy:?? But after seeing your comment above about sold out, I just checked again and it seems not sold out. I wonder if they could have different availability based on where you live and which distribution center they ship from? I’m in New England. But anyway, keep checking because about a month or 2 ago when they first dropped the price at walmart.com, and i was stocking up, i would go to their website every day to order and about half the time they were sold out but the next day back in stock. Good luck!

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Hmmm. I will keep trying. I literally tried to buy after your post.

Our state seems to have very little (if any) availability of in house Covid tests. :frowning:

I just tried to buy some test kits and after I filled in my name, address & phone Walmart said they’re out of stock. Gee, thanks for nothing!

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I ordered two tests from Project N95, on sale. They are backordered but will arrive in time to do some testing of newly arrived folks for the holiday.

I took advantage of a deal from state of CO. I signed up online, and they shipped two 2-packs of BinaxNOW to the house. Not sure when/if we will use them, but we were unable to find in stores before our big road trip last May … so it seemed good to have.

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