Annoyed at the article, but, my spouse and I have not contracted COVID. I’m interested in others’ experiences and opinions, so please share.
As for me:
Assuming I’ve never had COVID - who knows? - I imagine it is a bit of luck, but vigilance, and a spouse that is more diligent than I am. Always masked indoors when away from home, except when eating or dining outdoors, or on the street in the open air. Handwashing when coming in from the outside world. Limiting contact to friends we know we can trust. Working from home. Avoiding large social gatherings. When visiting museums, preferring large open spaces, and avoiding crowds. Driving for our vacation home rentals to semi-rural environments.
That said, there are places where I do incur risk, like working out at my gyms, but always masked, or our weekly dinner out with an elder. Recently, we did attend a wedding but were the only people that masked - we did remove them for food and drink - and avoided close contact with others, particularly since many of the other families are anti-vaccination.
That said, with all our restrictions, I can live with our constraints. I am not happy our international travel is eliminated, particularly for my spouse, high-end dining has been reduced, wine and snacks with friends have been limited, and I would prefer to work out without a mask, but the upside is working from home. I sleep better than ever. I eat better than ever. Life is mostly like it was before, with work, family, museums, long walks, and workouts, while I look forward to the enjoyment of friends returning, over time.
I still haven’t been infected by Covid. I attribute that fact by the three factors listed in your title: vigilance, luck, and biology. I spent 11 days in the hospital in early May, mostly unmasked, in the aftermath of a stroke. I believe I was lucky to not contract the virus at that point.
I relaxed my vigilance somewhat as I stopped wearing a mask in the elevator of my high-rise apartment building; I resumed my mask wearing a month ago. I still rarely eat out and maintain much of my conservative routine that I used since early pandemic.
I wonder if the daily iodine supplement has helped.
Luck and vigilance are likely the leading reasons for my remaining covid-free up until the present.
I got it early on before it was really a thing. I was sick but not really bad. I missed 2 days of work. I was tested for antibodies 6 months later as part of the first covid study.
In the past month I got it again but I was completely unsymptomatic. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been testing because the rest of my family had it.
It think it has a big luck element, but also I’ve been vaccinated.
I’m still a “dodger”. I think, unless I was completely asymptomatic with it. I thought we’d had it early, because my husband travelled internationally a lot, even to China, and we’d been very ill after one of those trips. But we participated in an early antibody study, which came up negative. And every Covid test since then has been negative, too.
Everytime we get a sniffle or cough, we go “is this the Covid??”. But nope.
I’m going to go partially with “luck”, but largely “none of the above”, per the original question. I think the early days were pure luck and I guess statistical odds, but now that he’s not traveling anymore it comes down to our reclusive lifestyle. We’re honestly not trying to avoid it anymore, but we only leave the property every 6 weeks or so.
For my husband and me it has been vigilance that has kept us from getting Covid and maybe a little bit of luck. We have eaten out 3 times since Covid started, but the restaurants were large and airy with high ceilings. Even when outside walking we wear masks if we are near other people.
I have friends who have travelled, and are living their lives quite normally. Yes, they have had Covid, but they haven’t gotten too sick.
I have been spared somehow, as has my spouse. Otherwise, I hardly know anyone who hasn’t had it — some lucky enough to have experienced it twice!! I wore masks when mandated and pretty much stopped doing it when the rules were relaxed. I’m triple vaxxed (haven’t gotten my second booster but intend to do do, now that I’m eligible). I’ve travelled a fair bit and eat out, go to movies and concerts, gatherings, etc.
I think it is pure 100% luck for me.
For me, it’s been vigilance and luck. The vigilance…. Since March of 2020, I’ve worn a mask and avoided high risk events. It’s been challenging, because I live in a state that really had no restrictions. Whenever I wear a mask, I still at times get looks and aggressive comments. I think what helped though is that I’m in a warm climate where you can easily be outside so I did exercise and see people outside. I tend to think I plan my actions according to managed risk. I try to mask inside, and I don’t do any crowded events. Now the luck…. I have flown to see family about a half dozen times now. I also went to a family wedding last month. I booked a family trip months ago for next week so I guess I’ll see how that pans out. I’m worried. That’s the worst part of it now. It’s so hard to plan something and think it’s going to be ok, but I guess I’ll just try as best as possible to manage the risk. I’m vaxed and double boosted which I know definitely helped, and I could have even had an asymptotic case.
Vigilance or luck or biology, from the very beginning it has be vigilance, masking, social distancing and avoiding crowded places. As soon as the vaccinations were available, we got vaccinated and later boosted.
Our vigilance was not enough. Our son’s employer did a super spreader event, a gathering of all employees for a day long event, including a banquet. This was in early June. He got it first then both my wife and myself.
We were able to get over it staying at home. I suspect that Covid-19 infections are much higher than the official stats because of home testing and people getting better without hospitalization.
I was only positive for 10 days, but I had very high insulin resistance for about 30 days. My insulin use and time in range is back to my normal the last 2-3 days.
For many people I’m not sure its possible to know if you’ve been “infected”. A past infection create antibodies and I think it’s not possible to know are the antibodies from infection or vaccine.
So if you’ve never been vaccinated and have antibodies you had covid at some point. For everyone else you could only know from a positive test while you are actually sick.
About 1.5 years back my wife had Delta and got sick. I was vaccinated and never got sick. I have no way to know but it seems hard to believe the virus didn’t get in my body at all. Also at the time my kids didn’t get sick and there was no child vaccine yet. I suspect my kids have had it from school and just never had symptoms.
I still see people I work with getting sick and saying its a pretty rough cold so I prefer to avoid it. You never know what it will be like for your self and managing diabetes on top of sickness.
Funny thing, before I was diagnosed I felt like I was getting colds pretty often. Since I’ve found out I was diabetic and got control I don’t think in 4 years I’ve had a cold that I’ve noticed. I also started taking vitamin D because blood test showed my numbers were low.
Actually lab tests can tell the difference between antibodies from vaccine vs the virus.
The vaccine has a tiny snip copy of the rna that the virus has.
So you only get antibodies to that small snip of protein.
So much so that the antibody tests are totally different depending if you want to know if your vaccine has waned or if you have antibodies from infection.
That small snip is enough to elicit an immune response, so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.
There are two antibody tests. The one that can tell you - most likely - if you’ve been infected rather than vaccinated is antibodies to the N protein. The widely available antibody tests, though, are for spike (S) protein, which as you note above is not conclusive. So if you want to know for sure whether you’ve been infected previously, ask your doc to order you the antibody test for N. And, good luck!
Don’t know I’ve never been tested for Covid and haven’t been vaccinated. Though I did keep to myself if I was feeling under the weather.
Did have something gnarly early January but the symptoms could have been any number of respiratory illnesses based on symptoms charts.
My girlfriend tested positive for Covid via RAT a month or so a go - I popped some Aspirin and a compound related to chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine and was fine she was unfortunately out of work for a week with high fever, chills, malaise, cough, etc. ( Triple Vaxxed Pfizer ).
I assume I’ve had it and have been exposed at this point traveled/dined out during 2020, 2021 and only masked when/where it was absolutely mandatory and visited mother when she was pretty sick with it though maintained distance. ( Double vaxxed Moderna ).
But I’m also O blood type, high vitamin D, and on other supplements.
Tough to say in your case but vigilance certainly takes the pressure off other potential weak points.
I spent a 4 day weekend ending July 4 in a cabin with my two daughters and their spouses, two toddlers and my wife. The morning of July 5 I woke up with Covid 19, unmistakable symptoms and a positive at home test. Nobody else that was with me came down with it.
We’ve gone round and round with the 5 day incubation (where was I the day before the 4 day weekend?) but the bottom line is nobody else came down with symptoms or tested positive despite the close quarters. Total luck in my opinion.
Paxlovid worked well for me, 36 hours after starting it I felt 100%.
I have never had Covid that I know of. I am a nurse and work in a hospital although not direct patient care. If I think I was exposed or have any respiratory symptoms, I get tested and have never tested positive. I don’t wear a mask except for doctors office or hospital. Will when I go on a plane just for peace of mind when traveling
I was pretty careful for the first year and a half, then I fell off the wagon most of the time. My Doctor mentioned that I have probably had it - twice. I thought it was my typical bad allergies, I tested negative each time, but my doctor told me that some people may never test positive using the nose test. I am due for a physical and I will ask to test if I have ever had it. Thanks for the heads up.
I saw something recently, that tests should use both throat and nose, since it can often be missed, or the amount of infectious material is much higher in one versus the other.
Also, I am wondering how many people here have had all four doses, two (2) base and two (2) booster shots. I heard yesterday, on a recent episode from Amanpour & Co., that only 20% of people have had all four shots. I’ve had all four (4), but the last was several months ago, and I’ve read protection wanes after a few months.
Also, for anyone interested in the interview, it is linked below. I had to stop watching at some point - we were heading out for dinner - and I only now realized that the interviewee thinks that COVID will drive a search for meaning.
