6 ms·

I've been traveling internationally over the past couple of day. Every person seems to have the sniffles, or to be coughing. I haven't noticed this since covi

I've been traveling internationally over the past couple of day. Every person seems to have the sniffles, or to be coughing. I haven't noticed this since covid began, presumably because the masks, sanitizer use, and social distancing have kept the cold and flu down.

TranquilMarmot 5y ago
I stay inside most of the time and don't really go out or travel or anything. Only time I leave the house is to walk the dog. It does seem like that past month or so I've been hearing constant sniffling, coughing, and sneezing as I walk around the neighborhood.
samwillis 5y ago
Here in the UK there seems to be some sort of cold that is ticking all the same symptom boxes as Omicron (sore throat, headache, nasal congestion, cough) but “isn’t Codiv”. My whole family had it before Christmas. I would describe it a rotten cold, we all sat on the sofa for like 5 days but weren’t bed bound, tested negative with LFTs the whole time (each did one at least every other day for a week). We isolated anyway. We know a lot of people who have had this experience in the last month. Most people seem to have had this cold or Covid recently. Now, I am suspicious that something is going on here. I have a suspicion that the LFTs are not testing positive for relatively mild Omicron. The LFTs procedure here, which we followed, has been to only swab the nose (they changed it maybe over the summer?) but I have seen many anecdotal reports over the last week of people who tested negative (LFT) with just a nasal swab but positive if they swabbed their throats. This potentially ties in with reports that Omicron mostly affects the throat whereas Delta affects the back of the nose. I have seen no official studies. It would not surprise me if we find out in a few weeks/months that nasal LFTs have a very high false negative rate with Omicron. Edit: Just found this about a small study suggesting exactly what I am suspicious of: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/health/covid-rapid-test-omicron-detection.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/health/covid-rapid-test-o... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v...
- Bellend 5y ago
  I had this and so did my friend and we live across the country. The same symptoms at different times. It was as you describe and my cough was terrible, unlike previous colds or chest infections. I coughed for about 40 hours straight and didn't sleep. I tested myself multiple times. I found it strange that I am boosted, masked, and sanitized, plus I am isolated as I am an unpaid carer for a family member with poor health and I managed to catch the bloody cold! It seemed suspect to me as well but of course, anecdotal.
- Hallucinaut 5y ago
  Same experience and suspicions here with December being miserable for the household but no positive LFTs (around 3 each) or PCR (one each). Wife still has a sore throat every night, weeks later, and mine lasted weeks too, which is unlike any cold we've had previously.
- kolp 5y ago
  There's a recent study(0) that suggests that saliva tests are more reliable than nasal swabs for detection of Omicron variants, whereas the inverse was true for the Delta variant. (0) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268246v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268246v...
- invalidusernam3 5y ago
  One of my friends tested positive for covid yesterday (via PCR test). He suspected he might have covid so he had been doing LFTs in the days leading up but kept coming up negative. Out of interest he did an LFT after he got his positive PCR and, surprise surprise, negative. Obviously this is very anecdotal and speculative, but like you said, I wonder if LFTs don't pick up this strain of the virus as well as previous, and if that is what is causing the numbers to be so high since I would imagine it is how most people test.
- slavik81 5y ago
  Michael Mina explains it this way: > Rapid tests do work with omicron. "But why are some people staying negative in the first days they have symptoms??" This is expected. Symptoms don't = contagious virus This is literally a reflection of the fact that vaccines are doing their job! https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1472024457640394756?t=noQ5lER1K6lIGAPnoa4hSQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/14720244576403947... There's a nice diagram with additional information there, and further discussion on other possible factors contributing to the results we're seeing.
throwntoday 5y ago
Went to a new years party in California and a dozen of us got stuffy noses and a small cough. Test came back negative. Haven't had a cold in so long I had almost forgotten what they were. Before getting the results I had assumed this was the mutation everyone would get as we leave the pandemic with a natural immunity to this weak strain.
capableweb 5y ago
Just stating the obvious (but not necessarily true): could be that before covid you never really never thought about others sniffles/coughing, but now after covid, everyone who behave "sick" becomes noticeable. I certainly noticed this in myself.
skinnymuch 5y ago
This was said in some Covid HN threads 1.5+ years ago when Covid began. We know now it was mostly people noticing stuff they didn’t notice before. Likely the same case here

TranquilMarmot 5y ago

I stay inside most of the time and don't really go out or travel or anything. Only time I leave the house is to walk the dog. It does seem like that past month or so I've been hearing constant sniffling, coughing, and sneezing as I walk around the neighborhood.

samwillis 5y ago

Here in the UK there seems to be some sort of cold that is ticking all the same symptom boxes as Omicron (sore throat, headache, nasal congestion, cough) but “isn’t Codiv”. My whole family had it before Christmas. I would describe it a rotten cold, we all sat on the sofa for like 5 days but weren’t bed bound, tested negative with LFTs the whole time (each did one at least every other day for a week). We isolated anyway. We know a lot of people who have had this experience in the last month. Most people seem to have had this cold or Covid recently. Now, I am suspicious that something is going on here. I have a suspicion that the LFTs are not testing positive for relatively mild Omicron. The LFTs procedure here, which we followed, has been to only swab the nose (they changed it maybe over the summer?) but I have seen many anecdotal reports over the last week of people who tested negative (LFT) with just a nasal swab but positive if they swabbed their throats. This potentially ties in with reports that Omicron mostly affects the throat whereas Delta affects the back of the nose. I have seen no official studies. It would not surprise me if we find out in a few weeks/months that nasal LFTs have a very high false negative rate with Omicron. Edit: Just found this about a small study suggesting exactly what I am suspicious of: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/health/covid-rapid-test-omicron-detection.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/health/covid-rapid-test-o... https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268770v...

Bellend 5y ago
I had this and so did my friend and we live across the country. The same symptoms at different times. It was as you describe and my cough was terrible, unlike previous colds or chest infections. I coughed for about 40 hours straight and didn't sleep. I tested myself multiple times. I found it strange that I am boosted, masked, and sanitized, plus I am isolated as I am an unpaid carer for a family member with poor health and I managed to catch the bloody cold! It seemed suspect to me as well but of course, anecdotal.
Hallucinaut 5y ago
Same experience and suspicions here with December being miserable for the household but no positive LFTs (around 3 each) or PCR (one each). Wife still has a sore throat every night, weeks later, and mine lasted weeks too, which is unlike any cold we've had previously.
kolp 5y ago
There's a recent study(0) that suggests that saliva tests are more reliable than nasal swabs for detection of Omicron variants, whereas the inverse was true for the Delta variant. (0) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268246v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268246v...
invalidusernam3 5y ago
One of my friends tested positive for covid yesterday (via PCR test). He suspected he might have covid so he had been doing LFTs in the days leading up but kept coming up negative. Out of interest he did an LFT after he got his positive PCR and, surprise surprise, negative. Obviously this is very anecdotal and speculative, but like you said, I wonder if LFTs don't pick up this strain of the virus as well as previous, and if that is what is causing the numbers to be so high since I would imagine it is how most people test.
slavik81 5y ago
Michael Mina explains it this way: > Rapid tests do work with omicron. "But why are some people staying negative in the first days they have symptoms??" This is expected. Symptoms don't = contagious virus This is literally a reflection of the fact that vaccines are doing their job! https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1472024457640394756?t=noQ5lER1K6lIGAPnoa4hSQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/14720244576403947... There's a nice diagram with additional information there, and further discussion on other possible factors contributing to the results we're seeing.

throwntoday 5y ago

Went to a new years party in California and a dozen of us got stuffy noses and a small cough. Test came back negative. Haven't had a cold in so long I had almost forgotten what they were. Before getting the results I had assumed this was the mutation everyone would get as we leave the pandemic with a natural immunity to this weak strain.

capableweb 5y ago

Just stating the obvious (but not necessarily true): could be that before covid you never really never thought about others sniffles/coughing, but now after covid, everyone who behave "sick" becomes noticeable. I certainly noticed this in myself.

skinnymuch 5y ago

This was said in some Covid HN threads 1.5+ years ago when Covid began. We know now it was mostly people noticing stuff they didn’t notice before. Likely the same case here