Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => COVID-19 => Topic started by: katieHaylor on 28/10/2020 13:18:46
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Dave says:
My wife had a constant headache 9 days ago. She didn't really suspect Covid but I got her to the test centre. She was tested positive 7 days ago. I took a test 6 days ago and was negative. As I am with her every day I will have been exposed to the disease for 11 days or more.
Is it that I simply will not get Covid for some lucky reason?
Could it be I had it earlier this year and was asymptomatic? Maybe was it a false negative.
What do you think?
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Yes.
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She was tested positive 7 days ago. I took a test 6 days ago and was negative.
I am aware of quite a few examples like this. A friend, who is a GP, did not develop the infection but his wife and one child did.
There are a number of explanations. The simplest is that the test is wrong, which does happen because no test is perfect. Either she wasn't really positive, or he wasn't really negative. The same could apply for you.
The alternative is that she (or the child) did not give it to him. We know that SARS-CoV-2 spreads in "bursts" whereby about 80% of the cases are attributable to only about 10% of infected individuals, so most people don't pass it on to anyone else. This would equally apply to you.
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From the timeline, you could have caught it, your wife caughy it from you and you were clear by the tie you took the test.
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From the timeline, you could have caught it, your wife caughy it from you and you were clear by the tie you took the test.
That is an interesting thought :) But is it the case, that your test is negative even when you are postcovid?
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Hopefully, "postcovid" means negligible virus but significant antibody concentration, so the answer depends on which test you took.