My personal experience with COVID

So let’s get the beliefs and preliminaries out of the way. I’m a freedom of choice vaccine supporter. I don’t believe in force or pressured adherence. I don’t believe in misinformation because if it were it would be rebutted not banned away from debate. I’m married with three boys (13,11,9 years of age). The only one vaccinated is me. We don’t argue about it and it has never been a point of contention. We base it all on personal choice. I’m the only one that wanted it.

I work a two weeks on and two weeks off schedule. I came home to one kid sick (my oldest) and my wife in bed sick as well. Nothing ever lays her up so I thought this was a bit strange. My boy was 100% better in 2 days. But on day one of being in bed my wife tested negative for COVID using a rapid test at the doctors office. She then laid in bed for two more days and went back to the doctor because she was getting dizzy and felt like fainting. Second rapid test came back as negative and they gave her a shot to get rid of her migraine (they thought this was the cause of dizziness). This shot knocked her out for dang near 2 days.

She developed I higher fever at this time and got me nervous so we took her to the hospital again. They took chest X-rays and blood work. They also gave her another COVID test that went to a lab this time. The results for the X-rays and for the blood test came back the following day. She had Pneumonia and was given some pills to take for that. However they said it didn’t look like COVID Pneumonia but the results still never came back. Now my youngest is coughing as well. Not putting him down but he has a cough.

Two days after the last doctors appointment and the last lab COVID test the results came in again and this time as positive. She’s actually starting to feel better now and doing some walking around. But why on the third test? Do they test until they get what they want or is the lab test more accurate? But whatever, we’ll go with it. It does make some sense because it has effected everyone except for me (vaccinated) and my middle kido (11).


So far if this is COVID for real it has laid up my wife longer than she has ever been put into bed by any disease. She says she never wants it again but still would not get the shot. My kids that have it has had worse colds than this by far.

As for me I’m glad I got the shot because I don’t have it and I can still go hunting. I live for hunting if you all didn’t know. So long as my wife gets better by then I’m on my way. I do think the shot came with some side effects though that I’m not happy about. That said, at least I can hunt lol.

I will update this thread if anything changes but that’s where we are at now and so far it’s not horrible yet.

 

Remember that due to the limitations of the PCR test, a positive result DOES NOT MEAN a person is infected with any given disease.

All it means is that pieces of certain DNA were detected. Depending upon how many cycles the process is run at, even acknowledged by CDC last year, the chances of a false positive can be 90% or better.

The tests cannot determine infection, they can determine only the presence of certain DNA fragments, and those fragments can be from any source, NOT NECESSARILY a specific virus or bacteria.

The way the tests are misused is the cornerstone of the scam.

 

So you’re saying it’s still likely it’s not covid?

 

Based on my "covid world"...the experiences of family and friends and co-workers...the rapid test especially seems to have false negatives until symptoms actually set in. My brothers family tested negative after exposure and later that day they all became sick. Then they tested positive. Also, I've noticed recently ....people I know who had the vaccine still got covid later. And with its variances (such as the flu) I think no one is truly immune. It will always be a part of our life imo. I hope your wife feels better...some people have a harder time with this then others.

 

I will pray for your wife and your family.

 

One wonders whether it was given to or contracted, in a "health care" type setting ?

 

Hope your wife will be getting better soon. The rapid test (antigen test) is prone to false negatives. That's why the gold standard is the PCR test. With pneumonia setting in that rapidly, it's got to be covid. For the flu or cold, pneumonia is often rather a secondary bacterial infection, which can be treated with antibiotics. Covid causes viral pneumonia, which is different and doesn't respond to antibiotics.

In any case, watch out for long covid. I have a friend in his mid thirties, very fit and active, who got long covid. He had shortness of breath months after covid being acute. Probably scar tissue in the lung. We don't know yet whether these long covid cases are more prone to thinks like COPD later in life. I think it is very possible.

 

It's 100% certain that it was Covid. The RT-PCR test is very specific. Practically there is no such thing as someone with symptoms, pneumonia, and a positive RT-PCR test who doesn't have Covid. Whoever is telling you this (I have that person on Ignore) doesn't know what he/she is saying. Don't listen to BS.

The rapid antigen tests are much less reliable than the RT-PCR.

Glad that your kids as expected had no consequences.

Glad that your wife is getting better, but be attentive to the period between day 7 and day 12 when things can take a turn for the worse. Maybe this time has passed already, not clear from your post, when the symptoms started (I counted 8 days, based on what you said, so she may not have passed the 8-12 yet). If it has passed then she is likely on her way to recovery although long-term sequelae could still happen.

Hopefully your wife being previously healthy and strong, she'll make a full recovery. Fingers crossed.

Your case shows once more why it's important to be vaccinated. You didn't catch this dangerous disease.

 

The doctor initially didn’t think the chest x-rays and CT scan showed COVID type pneumonia. But we haven’t talked to him since the positive test because it came back on a Saturday. So I’m sure we’ll talk to him about it tomorrow. I’m not sure if she should continue taking her meds but she is.

 

You have to trust the doctors, Joe.

 

My thoughts are with your family.

 

The hospital she went to should have a 24/7 nurse line. Call the ER and ask. A nurse will take the call or call back relatively quickly.

I hope she recovers completely and doesn't develop long COVID. I'm also glad your son had a mild version and his brothers and you and okay.

 

In my studies I don’t see any determination to be 100% effective at declaring positive or negative
https://www.foxnews.com/media/drama-at-the-view-co-host-reveals-covid-tests-were-false-positives

 

First, I wasn't talking about just the test, but also the full set of symptoms and clinical presentation PLUS a positive test.

Second, if you are mentioning as "in my studies" some Fox News assessment, sorry, but I won't be able to take this seriously. I only consider as evidence, real scientific studies on sensitivity and specificity of tests, and incidence of false-negatives and false-positives, not the opinion of TV pundits.

RT-PCR tests are very highly specific, that is, they almost ONLY spot the genetic markers of the SARS-CoV-2. They are also very sensitive and have very few false positives. They do have more false negatives.

The false positives do occur. See this paper that is trying to highlight this very fact, but still, it does make the following point:

"Recognizing that a positive RT-PCR result may be a false positive may be difficult. If a RT-PCR-positive individual has signs or symptoms of COVID-19 or has had exposure to somebody who has been shown or suspected of harboring the virus, it is prudent to assume that the result is a true positive, as has been the recommendation of the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control"

https://journals.lww.com/joem/Fullt...sitive_Results_With_SARS_CoV_2_RT_PCR.23.aspx

That is your wife's situation. Not only a positive test but ALSO symptoms, signs, pneumonia, and typical disease course, in the middle of a freaking pandemic of Covid-19, and with 3 unvaccinated household members.

I'm prepared to bet my house that your wife has real Covid-19, and I'm baffled that you still seem to doubt the diagnosis.

 

This was reporting about a first hand experience. To ignore someone’s else’s experience is in essence against every definition of science anyway. So what you’re saying is science is only science when the results are what you deem to be correct? That’s political, not science at all.

I do value your input though, so don’t think I’m being overly critical. Just saying I wouldn’t ignore them. Just like I don’t ignore CNN, I think keeping an open mind is a good thing

 

The odds of an infected individual testing positive at time of infection is zero. The likelihood of a positive result increases up to the point of symptoms onset and a little after to about an 80% (maybe 90% in some studies). Then the odds decrease quickly in most individuals again. It is not uncommon for even hospitalized patients to require multiple tests to finally produce a positive.

The idea RT-PCR tests (or any other type) are “gold standard” is hype. We simply don’t have a good test that is capable of detecting active infection let alone contagious individuals before symptom onset. This is why we don’t hear politicians touting more tests etc. like early in the pandemic and before the election. To be clear I’m not knocking tests. They are the best we have. They just aren’t as great as advertised.

Short answer—a positive test means an individual almost certainly has SARS-CoV-2 RNA in their body. They may be contagious or non contagious, but are/were almost certainly infected. A negative test any time except around the onset of symptoms and a few days after in an infected individual is as likely as not to be false negative in someone who eventually presents symptoms. As @CenterField says false positives are very rare.

My (vaccinated) father in law almost died of Covid. He was admitted to the hospital and tested multiple times all negative before being sent home with “non Covid pneumonia”. He was admitted again a few days later with a blood oxygen of 71. After that admission he finally tested positive for Covid and has since recovered and is home. It’s dangerous to assume a symptomatic individual does not have Covid just because they test negative.

 

First hand experience... that's not science. Like I said, I look at scientific studies, not anecdotal reports. Sure, I do have an open mind... open to conclusions of reputable studies with good methodology, but not necessarily open to anecdotal reports, except as a trigger for further and more methodologically sound investigation, or hypothesis generation.

By the way, what is being said is NOT contrary to what I'm saying. Of course I do know that there are false positives. But what I said is that it's not just the positive test, it's also your wife's symptoms and typical course of illness. Believe me, it's Covid.

Do observe that I never said that the test is 100%. I said that with the typical symptoms, the typical disease course, AND a positive RT-PCR test, I estimate the odds that she has Covid at 100%, and I stand behind it.

 

Agreed. False negatives are common. But if an individual has typical symptoms and an RT-PCR is positive, then it's Covid. That's why I said I was 100% certain that our friend's wife has Covid.

 

Twas likely the pneumonia. My brother and his wife got covid. He was sick a couple three days then was on the heal. She developed pneumonia as a secondary infection about a week after covid and it put her in the COVID ward for 10 days.

 

The larger point is that it could be almost anything, including rather benign virus already in your system.

Considering that it appears certain that nobody anywhere has actually isolated the virus, it could be anything.

The test cannot determine infection, it can determine only the likely presence of DNA fragments, and those fragments could come from many possible sources.