rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

(but that was only introduced last week)

I think that might just be for England for the moment, not yet applicable in Scotland at least.

Yeah, Scotland it’s still 10 days.

Ah my bad.

Got a positive Day 2 PCR yesterday after coming back from visiting family I hadn't seen in two years. Daily negative LFTs before and during the trip, and I'm still getting a negative now. No symptoms. Since PCRs can detect the virus weeks after infection, it could be I had it a while back without realising. Or maybe I just got it and haven't become infectious yet. Fuck knows. Gotta isolate now anyway, missing more family stuff and all that, but it's weird knowing that if I hadn't gone abroad I wouldn't have a clue that I'd ever been infected.

Welcome to the club! Sorry you're in the club. May you remain ever asymptomatic <3

I'm almost a week in and still feeling pretty rotten. Would love to be done soon - not sleeping well isn't helping.

So after two days of feeling fine and a negative LFT yesterday morning, I was starting to believe I'd be sprung from prison early according to the English rules. Sadly this morning my LFT came out with an immediate bold red T line, which means no early finish for me. I've also started feeling slightly lousy again - nothing serious but a slightly tight chest, the odd feeling of my heart racing and the occasional brainfog. Just hoping it's not Covid coming back or some sort of chest infection.
But yes, if all goes well tomorrow should be my last day of isolation

nothing serious but a slightly tight chest, the odd feeling of my heart racing and the occasional brainfog.

This is me the last 24 hrs exactly.

Hmmm... It's nothing too concerning, just don't want it to become a chest infection or anything like that. Today should officially be my last day of isolation.

So apparently LFTs are pretty unreliable for some time after having caught Covid and can show up as positive for up to 90 days. Is there any guidance on this, e.g. how soon after you recover one might catch it again

So we invited our spaced-out, unvaxxed friend for Xmas. What could go wrong, we thought? Even she wouldn't turn up ill.
Reader, she turned up ill - which we didn't realise until Xmas day, by which point we didn't feel we could boot her out, even though we should've.
She thought she'd "caught a cold from her flatmate", but it couldn't be Covid because her sense of smell was unaffected. Clearly she hadn't got the message from her social media (i.e. how she interacts with the world) that Omicron showed different symptoms - in fact, the very ones she had. Now of course we've all tested positive.
On about day 3 or 4 now, I've spent the morning slumped on the sofa unable to move because I'm so exhausted, but at least the chesty cough's largely moved on. Partner seems to be less affected than me but time will tell.
Grr.
Very, very poor pandemic management on our part, we really should have known. The biggest issue is that partner was supposed to be starting a new job in Edinburgh next week (we're currently in London), which we're going to have to delay as we're isolating. Should be okay though.
Anyway just venting, I guess if you'd told me 18 months ago that I would eventually get infected with Covid but I'd be triple-vaxxed and it's a mild strain anyway I'd have taken that.

oh no, sorry Matt, how annoying. hope you both feel better soon and all goes well with the move & the new job

(who thinks "I seem to have caught a cold but I definitely don't need to test for the virus with very cold-like symptoms which has been in the news for 2 years before I go to stay with some people?" I mean as my nom d'ILX suggests I'm as spacey a friend as any, but, oof)

xp am glad you’re recovering, but honestly, I’d never let this person in the door again after all this

Theyd do well to leave walking by my front door after that, what the actual fuck

Yeah she's not coming back that's for sure, what a fuckwit. That's the end of the friendship once and for all, although she'll be trying to say she didn't do anything wrong. She's a liability!

Glad to hear, and hope you both get over it quickly, what an absolute dose.

There will have been a lot of fucking around and finding out this winter across the UK

Sadly there will also have been a lot of self-justifying denial. I did nothing wrong it's just a cold now

I've got a bad cold and turned out 3 negative LFT's but still wouldn't turn at up family/friends house - just in case and wouldn't particularly want to share this cold with anyone either.

That's the point isn't it, if the pandemic's taught us anything it's that you shouldn't be infecting people with your diseases, whatever they are! All that "come into the office anyway, it's just a cold" bullshit needs to go.

If this pandemic's taught us anything it's that people don't care if they infect other people with their diseases

I wonder how, at this stage with people like this if it's that they're genuinely naive, blinded by their filter bias, just playing stupid or...? I have a colleague who's caught Covid three times, has a customeer-facing job and even had relatives pass away and still won't get vaxed

building that natural immunity one infection at a time, it's arduous work, but he'll get there someday

matt and LJ both OTM

yeah, he must be really glad of that immunity so he can avoid being infected!

Today was my first day of freedom but honestly I feel mildly worse today than I did through my lockdown period - regular brainfog and heart palpitationy stuff. It's fine but also disquieting

Good news in our household. Since it's been five days since my wife tested positive, she tested again (with a rapid at-home test) and is now negative. I've also consistently tested negative (3x) during that time.

She did experience some mild flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, but nothing too bad. The main challenge is that she still has some sporadic pain in her left eye, and now extreme photosensitivity. She's had to keep the lights off and curtains closed, and is occasionally wearing sunglasses and an eyepatch for good measure. She suspects that it's viral conjunctivitis, which I've found has been connected to COVID in some cases. (Although at this point, what hasn't been?) So, even though we're no longer isolating from each other, her activities are still kind of restricted.

On the whole, though, we're relieved.

congrats escaping folks. it will get better.

Congrats, jaymc

I am on my 10th day after first having symptoms, 8th day after testing positive with a home antigen test, and no longer have symptoms, but just tested positive again on a home antigen test. I can't seem to find any other tests for the time being so I don't know what I'm supposed to do - stay inside for the rest of my life?

Is it not the case that tests are likely to be positive a few weeks after infection? Or is that just PCRs?

My wife just read something similar. I was hoping for something definitive before venturing back out.

a teacher friend posted his daily tests and they started positive on the 18th, the day after the end of term, and were negative again on the 27th, the day after boxing day, it was textbook.

(although i guess home tests are harder to come by if you're not a) in england and b) a teacher)

Fauci said yesterday the tests at this point in your condition are picking up trace elements or remnants of the virus.

My family is doing the "not infallible, but it'll have to do" strategy of rapid testing if we meet up (as long as the tests last), and steering clear of each other if we're poorly. I am gradually coming to accept that this means adjusting to my sister's much riskier risk profile (e.g. theatre and restaurant trips, still wearing cotton masks, family members in high school) although they are all as vaxxed as can be.

My problem (similar to the one above) is their extreme need to be sketchy and low-detail if one of them is sick. We can meet on new year's day because whatever's wrong with them is "nothing" and "we're sure it'll be fine" which is maddeningly inspecific to me. There unwillingness to go into detail anything means I have to put myself and my side of the family at risk, and if I ask too many questions I'm "worrying too much" or "overcuatious" or prying into their right to privacy.

Found this chart helpful re tests:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FH3m54oWQAEzHR1?format=jpg&name=medium

my roommate just tested positive, feeling like my decisions didn't matter lol

Ugh. Stay safe Brad!

:( brad

Horrid. Crossed fingers!

A testing center near us has had a 49% positive rate. No more pooled testing possible and is now only testing those with symptoms due to the impact to capacity.

sounds about right

Good luck, Brad.

She suspects that it's viral conjunctivitis, which I've found has been connected to COVID in some cases.

That's interesting -- I had similar eye issues a couple of wks after testing positive.

It's been a month for me now (I had been double-vaxxed, and got sick a couple days before scheduled booster appt). I still don't feel 100%. Aside from smell/taste not having completely returned, I feel, not brain fog exactly, but more just like my energy is off. It's very reminiscent of how I felt hours after first vax shot, or how it feels when you're on the threshold of coming down w a cold bug. Like something is making mischief in my system in a way that's low-key enough such that it doesn't prevent me from performing routine daily tasks, but is just enough of a nuisance to make me feel "off".

I half-convinced myself the other day that I had Guillain-Barré syndrome, but it was probably just hypochondria-induced anxiety. (laughs nervously...)

I'll add that the general wackness of life for seemingly everyone on earth in dec 2021 is probably a contributing factor to the general blahs/malaise feeling. Sick building syndrome, except the building is like, our whole planet/society, maaaaaaan...

I just... cannot believe Matt's friend would turn up for a home stay while she had symptoms, regardless of what they were. Sorry I'm late to register my disbelief—I was still thinking about it. Matt, I hope you and yr partner and everyone in the thread are doing alright. Omicron feels inescapable, short of living in a bubble. Fuck COVID.

Haha you don't know her! Total space cadet, existing in a bubble where actions and their consequences are only tenuously linked. Much of the blame lies with us for not realising she'd be capable of such stupidity I suppose, and for not booting her out into the cold while we still had the chance.

A week on and my wife is pretty much fine, other than minor post-cold congestion etc. I'm still kind of fatigued, although the cold symptoms are also mostly history. My hope is that I'll be back to something resembling normality in a week or so. Fingers crossed. Others, I know, have it far worse so I'm not complaining too much.

Anyway good luck to all sufferers in this thread and elsewhere. Here's hoping the Omicron after-effects are as mild as the infection largely is, and that the next mutation continues along the same lines!

Ahh, I know the type. It's not a great type... Yeah, it was another 8-9 days on and off again in my case, before I felt like I kicked the dregs. At least I think they're kicked. The past couple days have been good.

I hope the medical science advances beyond any upcoming mutations, and there's effective treatment and inoculation technology for whatever the hell might be coming up this year.

My 9 year old caught it somehow, despite masks and double vaxxing. My 12 yo tested negative ( I was lucky to find some rapid tests at a drug store on Friday). He has mild cold symptoms but has a ton of energy as usual. Mom and I went for testing this morning.

Have you contact traced with all your bartenders yet