I would have said the same. 3 and a half years working retail during the pandemic and last week was the week it knocked me on my ass. Be careful.
Same! I work in healthcare and had to test nearly daily (using the antigene tests) and didn't catch COVID until last week. If I didn't work in healthcare I probably wouldn't even know I had it, since the symptoms were rather mild. I only tested, because I had to work with people on chemotherapy and didn't wanna risk them. At this point, I think there's lots of people who catch the virus and don't even know about it since we mostly stopped testing.
I dunno, wore a mask in public during the worst of it and used hand sanitizer regularly? I think it helped more that I'm a homebody with no friends.
I got it for the first time at the beginning of September. I was so pissed, my 2.5 year streak of avoiding it gone. It was pretty brutal too, the fever and muscle soreness was no joke.
That's me. I stayed home, avoided events, and waited to go to restaurants until cases were down. When I did go places, I went when it wasn't busy and sat outside. Avoiding COVID wasn't rocket science, all you had to do was follow the basic principles of disease prevention.
Now try it with kids or a partner who works in health care. Personally I was quite strict like you, but had it a couple of times due to external factors becoming internal factors.
I won't pretend that luck wasn't a big factor, but my wife worked at a senior living facility and I managed to avoid catching it. Hell my wife even caught it, but she moved into the guest room and we just treated it like a clean room
My wife is an ER nurse and I never got it. Funny thing is she didn't get it until she was in the hospital getting her gall bladder out. We also had two kids in elementary at the time, and they never got it either.
Family of four here, 3 of us got it for the first time this past weekend. My wife still hasn't had it.
I work in childcare so it was inevitable for me lol. I managed to go a whole 3 years though but caught it a month ago lmao
At this point it's highly unlikely that there remains a human in an urban center that has not caught covid once. Maybe they didn't have symptoms, maybe they didn't notice, but they've had covid.
That or they're a hermit.
There are plenty of immunocompromised folks who have continued to be vigilant and likely haven't caught it.
But generally, yeah. If you are in a city and haven't been taking precautions you had it, you were just asymptomatic.
you had it, you were just asymptomatic.
A distinction without a difference, in my mind. I'll take it
I live in one of the largest US cities, attend concerts, use public transit, and fly internationally. No covid in this house, and we go through a box of RATs a week. Not immunocompromised, we just don't want covid.
The secret: we wear respirators everywhere and use nasal spray before & after risky situations.
My wife and I just mask up and not n95's. She wears gloves to but I just wash my hands often. No covid, no regular flue, no cold, no food poisoning. We have not had anything behind headaches and allergies in the last 3 or 4 years. And for those who are going to ask how we know its allergies. Well its because allergy medicine clears it right up and its usually something that would set off allergies.
Thats why I don't wear them but my wife is a bit more cautious and she should be given her medical issues. Her biggest threat is likely me. That being said in the long run we have been more impressed with how the precautions have kept all the other stuff as well as covid away. I keep worrying restaurants will stop using the light plastic gloves but luckily they seem to be keeping them. I would not be surprised if they looked at the data and saw a marked reduction in online complaints about eating there and then getting sick and decided it was worth the cost. That being said wearing the mask, to me, is nor more and maybe a little less annoying than wearing a hat. But gloves, especially disposable type, does not pass the value vs nuissance factor for me. Granted I live in the north so half the year I am wearing some kind of glove outside. I still hand sanitize and wash though.
Breathing and eating unmasked at a restaurant is a much bigger risk for covid than anything to do with hands. Covid is airborne.
Yeah and I don't do it often or unnecessarily but I don't really close myself off all that much. I just use a mask when in an enclosed public space or outside space with inadequate distancing when I don't otherwise need to utilize my pie hole. So im not zero risk by any means but from my anecdotal data of the last 3 or 4 years its amazing how much it helps. Im wondering how long I can go without getting sick.
i think the handwashing is a much bigger thing than a lot of people realize. wash your damn hands people!
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No one in my family got it, and my kids are in public school, while I work in a restaurant. Precautions plus luck, I guess. That or we're genetic freaks.
I never got it, and I've been tested a few times due to coming into contact with people who did and always tested negative.
Negative test, especially negative rapid-test do not mean you don't have covid. And positive tests don't necessarily mean you're visibility sick/contagious.
Not a hermit, just mask everywhere, don't go to big things, and ask my friends what they've been doing recently if I want to take off my mask around them.
Yeah people are confusing subclinical disease with not ever having it. Outside of total extreme isolation you had it at some point. You didn't know you had it. You were in denial about having it. But you had it.
Tests are not 100 percent sensitive. Or many people just chose not to test themselves. But if you were interacting with the general population in the past 3 years you have had covid.
Whats extreme isolation to you? The person at the grocery store still wearing a mask and cleaning with hand sanitizer at the car?
I don't think my entire family that spans from toddler to elderly would all be asymptomatic and show false negatives on RATs, but I guess it's possible.
But also is cross-immunisation. So...one could have had something other than Covid-19 and still be immune to it. Then there are also the genetic outliers that are just naturally immune to the attack-vector of the virus.
This is just multiple ways of saying what I said. Outside of some extreme outliers every person has come in contact with the virus. But that doesn't always translate to extreme illness or even mild illness. As you said some people are naturally resistant or have other means of a defense that doesn't lead to a significant illness after exposure.
So really the more accurate thing to say is that you never got sick from your covid exposure. Again you have to divide this further into those who genuinely have never had cold like symptoms since 2023 and those who are just in denial about it. I've come across a few people who proudly claim they've never had it but have shown up to work coughing and hacking. Lol sure you haven't.
I see this assertion all the time and while there is a fair bit of underreporting this line is just plain wrong but said with 100% conviction every time.
Estimates using late 2022 data assumes about 25% of Americans 16 or older have not caught COVID. 50+% believe they have not caught COVID, so unless I'm missing something drastic then if you are like me and lived as a hermit for 3+ years, followed all the reasonable precautions, and never had symptoms there is more like a ~50% chance you caught it and were asymptomatic.
It's only an estimate. It's closer to only 20 percent not producing antibodies. Some percentage of that is people having immuno compromise and not developing humeral immunity even though they've likely been exposed. Then there's testing failure. None of these tests are 100 percent sensitive.
I do believe though like what. Ten to fifteen percent of people have isolated for three years and not gotten it. I'd buy that for sure. And there are a lot of places where you just don't encounter people often. People that naturally were distanced from others just sort of...kept doing what they were doing.
I really should. I haven't had the 'rona and also survived a stroke and two rounds of brain surgery in 2022. I'm one lucky bastard.
Thanks, me too! Otherwise I would have missed the whole reddit debacle, and never discovered Lemmy😉
I only had one round of brain surgery and worked in a convince store all through COVID taking slander from all the customers in my super red county. Did not get COVID!
Yeah. You'll win nothing. :-D
Just like the guy whose name was Peter Ninth, born on 9.9.1999, who was living in flat number 9... On his 19th birthday he bought a ticket on horse race for the horse number 9.
The horse ended up ninth.
Did Peter Ninth bet that horse number nine would come in 1st or something? After all of those nines, he went against it regardless, and lost? Peter needs to pick another pony if he's gonna gamble against all odds anyway
I'm... Not sure. It's an old joke and I only remember the point, and I basically wrote it from scratch. :-D
that you know of. I'm sure there are sections of the population that were silent carriers. you fuckers got us sick!
Feel like I had very covid-like symptoms a couple of times. Not quite like a flu, similar, but a little different.
Tested myself every time, always negative. Not sure if it's a false negative, or a variant that doesn't get a result on those tests tho. Almost hard to believe i never caught it tho, as I have been exposed a couple of times too.
This is my speculation too. Been super-sick a number of times. Always swabbed negative. Anecdotally, I know folks that tested a lot more often and only came back with a positive on the 4th try or so when feeling ill. The fine-print of my at-home tests say they're only something like 76% accurate. Maybe I need to play the odds.
I'm one of those who still haven't caught covid. But every time I leave home, I still wear a mask. I vaccinate whenever a booster's available. And i still wash my hands all the time.
meanwhile i got vaccinated 4 times and still caught it twice - is there a prize for that end of the spectrum?
Avoid kids, don't go outside unless you have to, don't touch everything you see like you're some kind of toddler; hands in your pocket. Don't slack on basic precautions, gravitate towards old people and if you see a white girl cough, drop your path and reroute to avoid them.
The first and last ones are by far the most important to follow; by far the biggest vectors of the disease.
The touching stuff is much less important for Covid. (It's a huge vector for other things like the flu though.)
Fitter
Happier
More productive
Comfortable
Not drinking too much
Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
Avoid kids
If you see a white girl cough
Drop your path
And reroute to avoid them
I worked retail through the worst parts of the pandemic, there is no chance I didn't get it, but I never had symptoms.
The more that time goes by the more that I feel like I'm in this camp. Never got it, and never officially tested positive for it despite taking several over the years but there is just no way I didn't get it. Even my roommate/family members did, and I didn't? But yeah. Never had a single symptom.
I've only tested positive for it once, and that illness wasn't even in the top 5 worst colds that year. I've had numerous shitty colds since, any one of them could have been Rona again, but I ether wasn't infectious at the time I tested or it was after the point I stopped testing every sniffle.
There's a chance I have it right now, but I don't know if I can be bothered to grab a test when it will be done in a couple of days.
I'd take an updated booster if they offered me one, but my government is only offering them to over 50s.
I'm of the opinion* that once the majority has spike protein specific antibodies, occasional exposure to small viral loads (incidental contact) is probably a good thing for refreshing an immunity that might otherwise wane and allow a serious case to take root.
*I'm not an immunologist obviously, but I've previously read up on the clinical justification the NHS uses to recommend against widespread chicken pox vaccination
I am sure, at this point, for some people the tests don't work. I have lupus and take immune suppression medication and my only means of transportation is public transport. Normally, I collect every germ possible. But somehow not COVID? Nah.
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Me too. Though I'm wondering if I ever caught it and just ended up being asymptomatic. I can't say that I've been particularly careful and pretty much everyone in my social circle had it at some point.
I thought about that to but I usually got sick with something every year before 2020 and I have not been sick since either late 2018 or early 2019. Its been so long I can't remember. The masking is working for everything else so likely I don't think my wife or I have caught covid ever.
same, my wife had it, all my co workers had it, I'm just getting over a cold right now but I don't think I've even had a sniffle since pre-covid. I even went and donated blood for the anti-body testing and that came back negative.
I've probably gotten it at least once, since most people are asymptomatic. I've never had symptoms and never tested positive. Still, I feel like there's a good chance I just got it and it was never detected.
I do think that is true. I've worked in a clinic through the whole pandemic, which meant mandatory tests everyday. Cought two asymptomatic infections this way. With the first one I had a very light headache - I would have thought absolutely nothing of it if it weren't for the test. Second time I've got no symptoms whatsoever. I then got it again for round three and that one suuucked.
Who knows how many had it were none the wiser.
That fucker got me in april. Even with precautions. Thank god i got vaccinated or my immunocompromised ass would be six feet under.
I'm one of them! It has been in the house three separate times and I've managed to make out without a single positive test. I don't even bother with masks outside the house