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I tested positive for covid. However--
3 years ago
The footer is the truth.
There's some bizarre issues we're facing out here. So lemme explain from the beginning, and remove my older journal about it.
So, my dad had a trip to Boston for a single day to do an interview about 2 weeks ago. Within roughly a few days of returning, he got sick. He got the rapid test multiple times, each time it was false, 3 times in a row, so he assumed flu. He came and told me he was sick.
I got sick 2 days later, while he was recovering. I assumed because his tests were all negative, that it was the flu. So, I walked around town, into stores and such no mask like any normal person with the flu would have done pre-2019. I bought cold and flu medicine, and chicken noodle soup. I did however take precautions, and told the guy I had the flu when we were checking out so I held the items up for him to scan instead of handing everything to him and I avoided touching anything I didn't need or directly breathing onto anything. Like I would have before the pandemic anyway.
I got pretty sick one night, had a desperately hard time sleeping all week, I went to the local walk in clinic to ask about flu advice because it was hitting me hard and I don't get flu shots. They decided to test me for covid and the flu, an over night test I guess. Flu, negative, covid, positive.
I told my dad, he starts freaking out like I'm contagious to him, yet he's the one who gave it to me. He went and got another test, it was positive, barely. Then he gets a 5th test again the next morning, negative. So now he's under the assumption that the 4 negatives are right, and the positive is wrong, and that I'm contagious to him...
Here's the thing I'm confused with. How can 4 tests be negative when he's the one who gave it to me? I can't prove it either. I don't have any other potential source of contact with anyone who had covid either. I don't go partying or hanging out with people or anything, there's not really any place I could have gotten it at. The only sick person I encountered, was my dad. I have all the same symptoms he did. It had to be him!
I can't find any information online about the reliability of tests, I was hoping to find research that would show the chances of a false negative, and the chances of a false positive. If the false positive rate is 1% and the false negative rate is 40%, for example, it would certainly explain things.
Now, I'm not in the habit of doing the blame game thing, but in my particular case, I want to figure out where the point of contact was, who got who sick, and where it came from and where it went.
Now that I know I'm positive, I put a mask on if I need to go inside some place. Like yesterday when I did laundry. Today I just stood outside the pizza place a certain distance and called them to place my order by phone and they brought it out to me. So I'm taking precautions now that I know. Not that it helps because the fact is, I was walking around no mask inside places while I was fairly sick, to buy stuff to manage the symptoms with.
Its particularly interesting, considering, I did research online to compare symptoms between cold, flu, and covid, and I had all the flu symptoms, even ones that happen more in flu than covid, and not a single covid symptom. The flu and covid are now almost perfectly identical in symptoms (at least for the vaccinated). Thats pretty bad cause we won't be able to tell the differences anymore, but at the same time its good because it means the lethality is reducing. It only lasted about the same duration as a flu for me. 4-5 days. Now I just have residual pain and some occular migraines.
So, if you can help me out with information about the false positive and false negative rates of the rapid tests, compared to the rates for other test methods and even flu test rates, that'd be great. I need some scientifically verified information possibly even from a .gov website.
So, my dad had a trip to Boston for a single day to do an interview about 2 weeks ago. Within roughly a few days of returning, he got sick. He got the rapid test multiple times, each time it was false, 3 times in a row, so he assumed flu. He came and told me he was sick.
I got sick 2 days later, while he was recovering. I assumed because his tests were all negative, that it was the flu. So, I walked around town, into stores and such no mask like any normal person with the flu would have done pre-2019. I bought cold and flu medicine, and chicken noodle soup. I did however take precautions, and told the guy I had the flu when we were checking out so I held the items up for him to scan instead of handing everything to him and I avoided touching anything I didn't need or directly breathing onto anything. Like I would have before the pandemic anyway.
I got pretty sick one night, had a desperately hard time sleeping all week, I went to the local walk in clinic to ask about flu advice because it was hitting me hard and I don't get flu shots. They decided to test me for covid and the flu, an over night test I guess. Flu, negative, covid, positive.
I told my dad, he starts freaking out like I'm contagious to him, yet he's the one who gave it to me. He went and got another test, it was positive, barely. Then he gets a 5th test again the next morning, negative. So now he's under the assumption that the 4 negatives are right, and the positive is wrong, and that I'm contagious to him...
Here's the thing I'm confused with. How can 4 tests be negative when he's the one who gave it to me? I can't prove it either. I don't have any other potential source of contact with anyone who had covid either. I don't go partying or hanging out with people or anything, there's not really any place I could have gotten it at. The only sick person I encountered, was my dad. I have all the same symptoms he did. It had to be him!
I can't find any information online about the reliability of tests, I was hoping to find research that would show the chances of a false negative, and the chances of a false positive. If the false positive rate is 1% and the false negative rate is 40%, for example, it would certainly explain things.
Now, I'm not in the habit of doing the blame game thing, but in my particular case, I want to figure out where the point of contact was, who got who sick, and where it came from and where it went.
Now that I know I'm positive, I put a mask on if I need to go inside some place. Like yesterday when I did laundry. Today I just stood outside the pizza place a certain distance and called them to place my order by phone and they brought it out to me. So I'm taking precautions now that I know. Not that it helps because the fact is, I was walking around no mask inside places while I was fairly sick, to buy stuff to manage the symptoms with.
Its particularly interesting, considering, I did research online to compare symptoms between cold, flu, and covid, and I had all the flu symptoms, even ones that happen more in flu than covid, and not a single covid symptom. The flu and covid are now almost perfectly identical in symptoms (at least for the vaccinated). Thats pretty bad cause we won't be able to tell the differences anymore, but at the same time its good because it means the lethality is reducing. It only lasted about the same duration as a flu for me. 4-5 days. Now I just have residual pain and some occular migraines.
So, if you can help me out with information about the false positive and false negative rates of the rapid tests, compared to the rates for other test methods and even flu test rates, that'd be great. I need some scientifically verified information possibly even from a .gov website.
Because again its detecting components of antibodies rather then the virus itself, so you could also have a mild enough infection that it doesn't set off the test. Having symptoms also doesn't directly correlate with how much on the antigens your body has; you can have a high level of antigens before you start feeling symptoms hit you hard, or you can have a low level of antigens when symptoms start hitting you as your body ramps to fight the infection, its all a bit of a gamble.
So, why use RATs at all? Again its because its good enough to figure that out, but especially in a vaccinated or pre-infected population the ability to detect it will wane a bit. In general though, its a case of, its a good quick test to do versus just guessing, and overall it helps out.
In your case its basically impossible to know what the truth is. You'd probably need to be using a RAT daily to be able to track the statistical anomalies. If you got infected by someone you know or not is also a major crapshoot because it can be all over the board, you just never really know for sure because it is too easy to run across people and get infected, like the common cold. The only absolute way would be to turn around and get a PCR test, which is the significantly more complex test that looks for the actual virus, and of course, is a lot more expensive. That's a test I would weigh in a lot more in terms of the false negative/positive rates.
In your case if you got a positive test its good to be mindful and take precautions. It would be good to take precautions even if you just have a flu or something too, not even because of COVID. Unfortunately a lot of people don't do anything so, its the normal we have to deal with.
Always found that funny working in an office the number of times I've heard "I have a cough but don't worry I'm pretty sure its not COVID". Like why do I want your cold even if it isn't? Lol.