JCC Did you have COVID?

I know we have a COVID thread but I thought it might be interesting to see what the results of a simple Y/N COVID JCC roll call were.

I had it. The chills were easily the most intense I have ever experienced but other than that it was a pretty run-of-the-mill illness experience.

 

I didn't test positive for Covid. But I can't tell if I never had it. I had a really bad cold in Feb 2020, just before it all exploded with those same symptoms, which lasted for a couple of weeks of coughing.

 

Thankfully I've stayed clear.

I've done all the outdoors stuff for my mother for the last (nearly) 18months and most of it for the family

Still mask up, still wash hands.

 

As far as I’m aware, I’ve been lucky and never had covid. Any damage to my respiratory system could end my career, so I was very careful to avoid infection. I feel a lot happier now that I’m double-jabbed.

 

I had the absolute worst cold/flu/whatever of my life in Feb 2020, on a level of magnitude higher than any cold or flu I'd ever experienced. I was bedridden for a week. Back then Covid was barely on the news, but who knows what that was.

 

It was a dark time for the ****posting thread.

I think a non-trivial number of Covid infections are lost to history because they came too early on to be seen and verified for what they were.

 

The very same happened to me, for about 3-5 days after Christmas in '19; in particular, the fatigue/chills & the sweats were a nightmare.

 

In Feb 2020 I had the worst "flu" I've ever had. A blanket felt like a boulder. What really makes me think I had Covid is with the regular flu my wife gets sick while I'm getting better. Back then she didn't show any symptoms until exactly a week after I had my first symptoms. Then my cat was lethargic for two days. After a few days I had to go back to work and when I asked if the company could provide hand sanitizer was told I had to bring my own.

 

I don't think anyone could say "No" with absolute certainty. For all they know they could've had it but been asymptomatic.

 

I don't have any evidence of a infection. But based on my reaction to the first vaccine shot, as well as other historical elements, I suspect my body had seen a fair inoculum before that point.

 

I was very careful, got to work from home all year before the vaccine, and had no reaction to either vaccine. So I suspect I'm a no

 

My co-workers and I often wonder if we actually did get COVID in the very beginning- before it was even known to be in New York. Because we work in Student Affairs, we interact with dozens of students daily. And at the time, students were traveling internationally for various activities and events and we had exchange students. So, there was a lot of people in and out and germs could easily stick to the various shared surfaces in our building- and our air filtration wasn't great due to an older system so that didn't help either.

Then in December 2019, myself and several members of my office had awful, awful colds from end of December through I'd say Mid-January. My mother too had a cold where she was sick for weeks in late November. Her lungs still didn't seem right after.

I'll never know if that was actually COVID or not, but we definitely had several of the symptoms that would later be associated with COVID. I was stuck to my bed and barely ate. My ribs were on fire from coughing- I went through so many cough drops, had a lot of soup and just slept a lot. I felt absolutely awful and actually locked myself in my room because I didn't want to get anyone else ill- so if it was COVID, that would explain why no one else got it. But, as far as once testing started, no, I have never tested positive in the dozen or so tests I had to take this year.

Our Office Manager ended up getting it this past December/January and it took her roughly two months to recover.

My sister did end up getting COVID around Easter and she's still fighting off the effects. Same for an uncle. Thankfully, no family or friends passed from it.

Happily, all family are now fully vaccinated.

 

I was knocked down pretty well by the vaccine, so I could have been exposed or had an asymptomatic/very mild case. But it's impossible to know for sure.

 

For full disclosure, I never tested positive, either. Mine was a case was, My Wife Got Sick, Tested Positive, Then Three Days Later I Had The Exact Illness She Did.

 

Not sure if we’re dealing with it now. Mom and I had our first shot in early July (shot 2 this coming Friday). We stupidly let in a physical therapist for mom for two weeks and last Thursday night / Friday / Saturday we felt like garbage: fatigue, dry cough with ravaged sore throat, headache, I lost my sense of taste and smell. We still have the cough, nowhere near as frequent, but we’ve been aggressively juicing, doing more vitamin C, D, zinc etc. Whatever we have, it’s responding to our treatment.

Cannot leave the house, but we both tested negative for Covid twice. Last time was in March.

 

Same. Worst cold in years. I actually went into Urgent Care because my fever came back a few days later. They tested for flu and pneumonia and both came back negative. Although the nurse said my lungs looked abnormal. She gave me an Rx for antibiotics because she was like "you obviously have some kind of infection, we don't know what".

A week later Boston had its cases when a biotech conference saw 77 people come down with covid. And although I work in biotech I wouldn't have had any contact with them.

 

I strongly suspect that if everyone that seems convinced they had COVID already "but it was early before it was being discussed" that we'd already have herd immunity because of how many stories there are

 

It’s highly unlikely that the nasty strain of the flu I had in December ‘19 was Covid. But it sure was nasty.

I think the death toll would also have been considerably greater.

 

I don't think I've had it unless I was completely asymptomatic. I had a mild reaction to the 2nd Pfizer shot, but not enough to make me wonder if I had previously had covid.

I haven't even had a single covid test. Haven't any cold-like symptoms since well before the pandemic began. Was fortunate enough to be able to stay quite thoroughly locked down (voluntarily) until I got vaccinated, so I'm very grateful for that.

 

There was also a known issue with a different flu variant spreading that winter. Hit some schools particularly hard.

And yeah, the death toll really doesn't indicate much.

I'd also note that, at least for Pfizer/BioNTech, a majority of people appear to have had some reaction to the vaccine, and I don't think there's a terribly solid case to be made that most people had already had COVID. So using a reaction (or not) to the vaccine doesn't seem particularly robust.

 

9-10 days of temp around 101.5. All my joints ached and a massive migraine headache the whole time. Lost taste and smell for 2 months. I was lucky if I slept more then 4 hrs a day.