I’ve made a couple of appointments w/ MD’s over the past 18 months for regular preventative exams (i.e. Wellness, Mammogram, Dermatology check). Each time they asked about my current symptoms, even though the appointment is usually months in the future. First time, I was honest, and mentioned I had a slight cough or cold at the time (don’t remember), and they wouldn’t schedule the exam – 3 months in the future! I questioned that logic, but they wouldn’t budge. Appointments are made through a central phone center, and I’m guessing they have specific protocols, but I still had to laugh. I learned to only schedule exams outside of allergy season 
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I agree - I’d ask your doc for it or try and schedule. If someone along the way tells you no, then fine. But if you’re stressing over feeling you would be better off with it, I’d try for it.
It’s hard for us rule followers. We feel guilty pushing the rules. You have a condition and your are very close to 50 - I actually thought asthma was a condition for the vaccine and age didn’t matter ??
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D1 was told she could go back to work on day 5 with no fever and symptoms improving. She would have to wear a mask until day 10. On day 5 she was still testing positive on the antigen and had symptoms, so work banned her until day 10. In her job, she gets around 100s of people. She would rather be overcautious then go into work and possibly infect people.
As far as testing D2 did a lab PCR Tuesday afternoon, got results back Wednesday night Negative. Tested positive on antigen Thursday morning. Not sure how much quicker a PCR will pick it up. Her Friday PCR was positive. We erred on the side of the antigen- if you were still positive, you quarantine. Took D2 7 days to test negative. Everything I read said at day 5 if you test positive there is a chance you are still contagious.
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| Day | PCR | Antigen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | - | PCR result late Wednesday | |
| Wednesday | |||
| Thursday | + |
So it is possible that if both tests were done both days:
| Day | PCR | Antigen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | - | (-) | PCR result late Wednesday |
| Wednesday | |||
| Thursday | (+) | + | PCR result late Friday |
Where Wednesday was one of these:
| Day | PCR | Antigen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | (+) | (-) | PCR detects a day earlier than Antigen, but result not available until after Thursday’s + Antigen test |
| Wednesday | (+) | (+) | PCR detects same day as Antigen, but result not available until Thursday |
| Wednesday | (-) | (-) | PCR detects same day as Antigen, but result not available until Thursday (Friday for first positive result from Thursday testing) |
However, the delay between PCR testing and getting the results could mean either delayed notice of infection at the front end, or unnecessary quarantine at the back end.
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It was frustrating how long it took to get the PCR to lab- over 24 hours. D2 did an antigen test on both Tuesday and Wednesday- both negative. Hard to tell if she would have taken the PCR on Wednesday, what it would have been. I was thinking the PCR would have picked it up quicker, than antigen.
I forgot to follow up on my granddaughter’s moderna vaccine. She was a little tired and irritable the next day, but nothing else. Now they are wondering if they should follow the 28 days guideline or wait a bit longer. And of course, they are well aware it vaccinated against the original strain not omicron BA.5!
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It has been just under 3 months since I got Covid, so got my 2nd booster yesterday. So far I feel fine except for a bit of soreness in my arm. Went to yoga class today.
I’ll be traveling to see my S at the end of the month. I will be wearing a mask on the plane and in the airport even if I am the only one who does.
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S is planning to get another booster before he travels internationally in early September. He is clearly younger than 50 , but he has asthma and any type of respiratory virus is a trigger for him. I am encouraging him to go for it and think you should too.
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H and I both caught covid a few weeks ago (me, first and him three days later). We are both fully vaxxed (H actually had 3 doses because of recent cancer treatment) and have had a single booster (mine was last november, his was in Feb.).
I didn’t pcr test until day 4 of symptoms (had tested negative on at-home tests on days 1 and 2 of symptoms). H took a rapid pcr on day 1 of his symptom onset, then immediately started paxlovid.
We both started out with the same progression of symptoms (1-2 days of low grade fever, aches, chills, terrible headache and scratchy throat as well as some rather unpleasant GI symptoms), but at that point, our progressions diverged (due to the paxlovid for him?).
By day 3, I had developed tons of head congestion (clogged ears, phlegmy cough), and I was beyond exhausted. I was sleeping 14-18 hours per day. My GI symptoms started to abate. I would continue to test positive on at-home tests until day 10. The extreme exhaustion lasted until about day 15. My cough and congestion are slowly improving, but are still fairly noticeable today (day 21).
H’s symptoms seemed to mostly disappear on day 3 (with the exception of the exhaustion) , but he experienced some prominent and uncomfortable side effects from the Paxlovid --notably, terrible diarrhea, and constant unpleasant taste in his mouth, and a dizzy/“swimmy” feeling in his head. These things lessened within 24 hours of finishing the meds, and completely disappeared soon after. He continued to test positive until day 8 and seemed to regain his normal energy level at day 12. He has no cough or congestion (never did) and seems to be completely over the whole ordeal.
Overall, it was definitely not fun, and though I would guess we’d be categorized as having fairly mild cases, we sure felt awfully sick for days. I’m thankful for the things (vax, boosters, paxlovid) that likely kept us from feeling even worse.
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I went back and forth on this and then moved forward and got it yesterday morning. Decided on Moderna for P,P,M,M.
Having pneumonia and bronchitis so many times I feel this was the right call for me too.
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My BIL exposed DH and me on Friday June 28. He felt tired (but given he’d been on red eye from CA didn’t think too much about it) but tested after our meal together. DH felt sick on Monday, but didn’t test positive till Tuesday with the antigen test. His doctor gave him a prescription for Paxlovid since he’s 65. I started feeling bad on Wednesday, tested negative then, and Thursday morning and Thursday evening. However I got a PCR test and got the positive result on Friday morning. By then my doctor was out for the holiday weekend, but it turns out our insurance has a tele-med option so I got Paxlovid too.
The Paxlovid did help with the worst of the symptoms especially fever and aches, but wow, what a nasty taste in the mouth! DH felt better and tested negative on day 6, but then relapsed feeling lousy and testing positive for another week. He’s finally tested negative today. I had better luck testing negative on Day 7 and clearly on the mend. I’ve still had trouble sleeping because of post-nasal drip and coughing primarily at night.
Anyway, this may be the mild form of the disease, but it’s still been a big disruption. The only good thing is that we have a reunion planned with friends from grad school next weekend. We were feeling pretty iffy about it, but now figure it’s highly unlikely that we would get sick again so soon.
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The entire stringbird family got COVID coming back from vacation. Everyone is fine now. I just wanted to share our testing results.
Husband and both daughters had symptoms starting Saturday 7/2 and would not take antigen tests (“they don’t work”). I didn’t take one because I was asymptomatic. We split the house up so I could isolate from them (unnecessary, it turned out) and we all took PCR tests on Tuesday 7/5.
I started experiencing symptoms on Thursday 7/7 and took an antigen test. Within a minute, the T line darkened, even before the C line. The PCR test results also came back Thursday and showed we had all tested positive 7/5 when I was still asymptomatic.
Husband (still mildly symptomatic) and one daughter (post-symptomatic) agreed to take an antigen test “for science” on 7/10 (their day 8; counting first day of symptoms as day 0). They both tested positive.
Same daughter agreed to test with me again yesterday 7/14 (her day 12, my day 6). Daughter was many days post-symptomatic, and tested negative. I tested positive, but you could only tell if you took a picture of the test strip and zoomed in on the results.
In summary, results all over the place. I think you really would have to test every day to have any idea of when contagiousness started and stopped, and my family is no longer willing to do that. I imagine that is true for many other families as well.
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The antigen tests saved DH and I from getting it. Of course at this point, we have burned through all of our free ones. You are right about the all over the place. It took 4 days for D2 to test + from D1’s onset of symptoms. It took my friend 7 days from her DH’s first symptoms. At 7 days I would have thought I was in the clear!
I am now debating on the second booster. I can get one, but I was waiting for the tweaked one. My issue is, I have a couple of high Covid exposure trips in September. I’m thinking I should just go ahead and get it before the first trip.
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Posted in the other COVID thread, but more appropriate here:
I tested positive yesterday (fully vaxed/boosted: PPPM). Dodged it when H had it a month ago, but we were in the car Sunday with a friend who said, “I have a sore throat and a bit of a cough, but tested negative this morning.” H & I gave each other the side-eye, because we know it takes a few days to show up positive. Got the email on Tuesday that he was testing positive.
Oh well, was bound to happen eventually. I actually feel fine so far, mild cold symptoms. I got sore throat Tuesday night, tested Wednesday (negative) but just felt off yesterday (positive).
H is doing fine, so hopefully he’s under the protection of his vax/boosters (same as me) and previous infection. He’s always been the concern because of other health issues. We’ve again split up the house, and mask around each other to be safe.
@jeneric We’ve also burned through the free tests, but our health insurance covers 8 tests/month each. While we couldn’t get CVS to process the insurance coverage, submitting a receipt to Cigna Claims works well so we’ll stay stocked up.
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We ordered our tests from CVS, online, and only paid $5 for shipping to our house. They billed insurance directly.
Tested positive still Day 9 ( me) and Day 5 (DH) but his workplace said it was fine to return to work. He caught it from the asymptomatic guy in the office next to him, gave it to me. It’s everywhere – I just declined an large indoor birthday gathering because the week after, we see S2 and he is immunocomp.
I would get the booster before your September trips if I were you. We made it 2.5 years without COVID but it’s really hard to avoid while traveling. Virtually no one is masking and it’s a symphony of coughing in the airport lounges.
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So I was in NY at a big conference at the javitz center tuesday and also flew home on Wed. Yesterday and today I have had a soreish throat. I took a home test this morning.-negative. Just went to urgent care that does Fast PCR tests and also negative, but the doctor saw post nasal drip and asked if I have allergies. I am around cats a bunch, including my own, but never thought I had issues.
My D comes home for 2 days in between days of being a staff member at camps. Its important that during those days she quarantines, as she doesnt want to get exposed or bring to the 2nd camp. So I need to make sure i am good. I guess we will be mask wearing in this house tomorrow/monday.
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If people are reluctant to get vaccinated due to discomfort with mRNA or viral vector vaccines, the newly emergency-use-authorized Novavax vaccine is a more traditional protein subunit vaccine (like some other older vaccines such as for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, HPV, and shingles).
Those who are reluctant to get the other vaccines because they see a connection to an abortion will find no such connection with the Novavax vaccine.
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Regarding Novavax and those who have medical contraindications to previously FDA authorized (emergency or fully) vaccines:
- Novavax trials did notice a slight increase in risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, similar to mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna). So those who encountered that with an mRNA vaccine may want to be extra cautious about Novavax.
- Novavax trials did not notice any increase in risk of the clotting issues seen with viral vector vaccines (J&J).
- Novavax ingredients include polysorbate 80, which the J&J vaccine has. It does not include polyethylene glycol, which the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have. However, polyethylene glycol and polysorbate 80 are related enough that allergy to one means caution with respect to the other.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2022-07-19/02-COVID-Fleming-Dutra-508.pdf has some information on who is not vaccinated.
The age alone numbers are from CDC COVID Data Tracker, while the others are from COVIDVaxView, unless otherwise noted.
| Group | % Not Vaccinated |
|---|---|
| Age 5-11 | 63.4% |
| Age 12-17 | 30.0% |
| Age 18-24 | 20.9% |
| Age 25-39 | 19.4% |
| Age 40-49 | 13.1% |
| Age 50-64 | 6.4% |
| Age 65-74 | <= 5.0% |
| Age 75+ | <= 5.0% |
| All age >= 18 (CDC COVID Data Tracker) | 10.3% |
| All age >= 18 (COVIDVaxView) | 13.9% |
| Other or multiple races, non-Hispanic | 22.1% |
| American Indian / Alaska Native, non-Hispanic | 20.6% |
| Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic | 14.7% |
| Hispanic | 14.3% |
| White, non-Hispanic | 14.2% |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 12.8% |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 2.1% |
| Other or multiple races, non-Hispanic, Age 18-49 | 29.2% |
| White, non-Hispanic, Age 18-49 | 22.5% |
| Black, non-Hispanic, Age 18-49 | 20.6% |
| Hispanic, Age 18-49 | 18.3% |
| Other or multiple races, non-Hispanic, Age 50-64 | 16.2% |
| White, non-Hispanic, Age 50-64 | 11.1% |
| Black, non-Hispanic, Age 50-64 | 5.8% |
| Hispanic, Age 50-64 | 6.6% |
| Other or multiple races, non-Hispanic, Age >= 65 | 1.5% |
| White, non-Hispanic, Age >= 65 | 1.7% |
| Black, non-Hispanic, Age >= 65 | 0.9% |
| Hispanic, Age >= 65 | 0.6% |
| Rural | 22.1% |
| Suburban | 12.9% |
| Urban | 12.0% |
| Below poverty | 19.9% |
| Above poverty, income < $75k | 15.1% |
| Above poverty, income >= $75k | 9.8% |
| Unknown income | 15.8% |
| Does not have regular physician or provider for primary care | 23.5% |
| Have regular physician or provider for primary care | 11.3% |
| Not insured | 31.9% |
| Insured | 12.0% |
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