Next level public health communication in Bern, Switzerland:
More than half a million new cases yesterday. Averaging quarter of a million per day.
Deaths at six hundred, averaging two hundred and fifty plus per day.
Sunday is Freedom Day.
Where do you work? Pontins.
Where have you been hiding? Under your couch
Yes, most of the time anyway.
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Sore throat, aches, feeling cold in my bones.
Antigen test negative.
I’m honestly starting to question the effectiveness of the free issue tests or my ability to use them to be honest. Hearing quite a few stories of people testing negative until day 5 after symptoms etc.
I felt really rough a couple of weeks ago.
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The Omicron varieties put so much more viral presence in the throat and mouth than in the nose, and a lot of instructions have not been updated. You should make sure you are swabbing in the mouth as well as the nose.
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From Feb-2022 by Ontario Science Advisory Table on COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test
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I do that. 7-8 tests, all negative. I had this cough that would come in fits, nothing in between. Once that cleared my aerobic levels were through the floor.
Antigen tests are a joke. Positive test is 5-6 days after symptoms and by that time you’re no usually contagious.
5 days is a long time, but with this no longer being novel to us we should expect the symptoms to develop more quickly (the immune response to recognition of a known invader) than the establishment of the infection (required to test positive on an NFT and become contagious)
As I said to Noo Noo, the relationship between symptoms and contagiousness (or, the development of suficient viral load to be positive on an antigen test) is different now we’ve had 2 years of exposure to it. You are not contagious until several days after exposure but your immune system will start responding to it from the moment you are exposed. That initial period of symptoms is now pre-contagioiusness.
As I mentioned before, my wife and daughter tested positive Thursday week ago. I had been taking tests semi-regularly and I decided to also swab on the throat for a laugh on Saturday after waking that morning with aches in the knee joints, even though the instructions don’t suggest doing the throat. The test was the faintest positive possible but positive nonetheless. The aches were the first symptom I had felt.
I’ve had general fogginess in the head, night sweats and fatigue since then but otherwise I’ve been ok.
I think the throat swab idea is an example of what twitter, for all its hellishness, can actually be really good for. Most experts believe this is good practice, but they are extrapolating to come to this conclusion. The evidence they are basing this on is not sufficient to justify updating the test kit instructions so without twitter it would be difficult to know of this evolution of thinking.
It’s basically the clinical chemistry version of off-label use.
Ta, always welcome your input on this.
Well true to form, this morning I’ve awoken to yet another batch of cold like symptoms. Having just got over the last one and managed to get a 3 mile run in last night that felt semi comfortable after 2 weeks of feeling that death is imminent, I’m back on the paracetamol and more testing. I’ll probably book a PCR test this time.
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Apparently lateral flows do work. Just tested positive.
I am apparently entitled to some treatment on this. We’ll see what happens there.
If I understand things correctly, I believe you are correct. You’re entitled to our contempt and mocking 
Right!..my old fruit bats…I’ve had this damm covid since Thursday/Friday when I tested +…had really bad flu like symptoms…but now its easing…tested again this morning…and 2 bloody lines again…how long is this going to last…(coz he’s got it…obviously 10 times worse than anyone else)…how long before I’m allowed to strangle him…answers well received…