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Anybody care to weigh in on something I can't figure out. Last October I had some sort of illness, with severe flu like symptoms. However my nasal swab PCR tes

Anybody care to weigh in on something I can't figure out. Last October I had some sort of illness, with severe flu like symptoms. However my nasal swab PCR test, taken 48 hours after symptoms, came back negative. I assumed it was flu, but everything I'm read suggests that flu is virtually unheard of this season. For a standard cold, it seemed to severe (102 F fever, body aches and chills). I also had a strong reaction to the first Covid vaccine dose. What's the most likely explanation here?

scomp 6y ago
I had the worst cold of my life in July last year (could of been the flu, it was a struggle to walk from the lounge room to the bedroom), got tested thinking 100% I had COVID (partner was a COVID nurse, seemed likely I would get it). Got a negative result.
dizzystar 6y ago
I took the PCR test back in November. I looked up all the data I could and it wasn't really possible find any straight answers, but this is the closest I could come up with: If you test positive, you likely had it and can spread it. If you test negative, there is about a 40% of a false negative, but it also depends on when you were exposed, so you'll end up negative if you are outside the window... post symptom, you were probably outside the window. This also depends on the test itself. When I got mine, I went to a place that was using a new form of the test, and it was bad enough that the testing company lost their contract (whether they were fudging numbers or not is debatable, I can't find any good information on it either). At the end of the day, if you didn't go to a hospital and get diagnosed with covid, or had an antibody test after you recovered, you probably can't be certain. Sorry, it's the best I could come up with after days of looking it up from multiple sources.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  > and it was bad enough that the testing company lost their contract (whether they were fudging numbers or not is debatable, I can't find any good information on it either) Ah yea. That happened in California and Florida for sure, probably other places too. In Florida there were two labs specially that were reporting 100% positive for weeks, I don’t care how badly they had it, that wasn’t actually possible. You probably had it, my personal experience was I got it early and aside from two days of flu symptoms it was gone. Didn’t know until I gave blood months later and had positive antibodies.
  - dizzystar 6y ago
    This one was over having too many false negatives.
scrollaway 6y ago
False COVID negative sounds plausible. I would have told you to do a serological test, but if you're already vaccinated then it's too late to know now.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  Yeah. I was actually waiting on the serological results from my donation at the local blood bank. But as it turned out the results were lost in the Texas blackout. Oh well...

scomp 6y ago

I had the worst cold of my life in July last year (could of been the flu, it was a struggle to walk from the lounge room to the bedroom), got tested thinking 100% I had COVID (partner was a COVID nurse, seemed likely I would get it). Got a negative result.

dizzystar 6y ago

I took the PCR test back in November. I looked up all the data I could and it wasn't really possible find any straight answers, but this is the closest I could come up with: If you test positive, you likely had it and can spread it. If you test negative, there is about a 40% of a false negative, but it also depends on when you were exposed, so you'll end up negative if you are outside the window... post symptom, you were probably outside the window. This also depends on the test itself. When I got mine, I went to a place that was using a new form of the test, and it was bad enough that the testing company lost their contract (whether they were fudging numbers or not is debatable, I can't find any good information on it either). At the end of the day, if you didn't go to a hospital and get diagnosed with covid, or had an antibody test after you recovered, you probably can't be certain. Sorry, it's the best I could come up with after days of looking it up from multiple sources.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> and it was bad enough that the testing company lost their contract (whether they were fudging numbers or not is debatable, I can't find any good information on it either) Ah yea. That happened in California and Florida for sure, probably other places too. In Florida there were two labs specially that were reporting 100% positive for weeks, I don’t care how badly they had it, that wasn’t actually possible. You probably had it, my personal experience was I got it early and aside from two days of flu symptoms it was gone. Didn’t know until I gave blood months later and had positive antibodies.
- dizzystar 6y ago
  This one was over having too many false negatives.

scrollaway 6y ago

False COVID negative sounds plausible. I would have told you to do a serological test, but if you're already vaccinated then it's too late to know now.

dcolkitt 6y ago
Yeah. I was actually waiting on the serological results from my donation at the local blood bank. But as it turned out the results were lost in the Texas blackout. Oh well...