# Does anyone here know anyone personally who has been diagnosed, or has been yourself?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-here-know-anyone-personally-who-has-been-diagnosed-or-has-been-yourself/849941>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [March 21, 2020, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-here-know-anyone-personally-who-has-been-diagnosed-or-has-been-yourself/849941 "2020-03-21T06:01:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 557

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2021, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-here-know-anyone-personally-who-has-been-diagnosed-or-has-been-yourself/849941/557 "2021-01-13T14:05:25Z")

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> [@dummygladhands71](#):
>
> Mom, in memory care and locked down since March, has tested positive 3X. She is still asymptomatic. My sibs in charge (I am not part of that group) have decided she will not get the vaccine. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. If she is + and an unvaccinated, and I, who has managed to dodge the bullet to date, get the vaccines, will I be safe to see my poor ole Mom?

Here’s some discussion on that point. The thread is sorta mis-titled.

> [@Is there any reason to think vaccinations are more effective than actually surviving covid?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-think-vaccinations-are-more-effective-than-actually-surviving-covid/930267):
>
> Vaccinations have been touted as being 95% effective, but ISTM that by all indications actually having had covid is a lot more effective than that. I would venture at least 99% effective, based on people I know (and know of) who have gotten or not gotten covid over the past 10 months or so. My parents are getting vaccinated today. Personally, if I were them I wouldn’t do it, because they have both had covid before and have tested positive for antibodies pretty recently. But I didn’t say anythin…

But it seems reasonably logical that if she’s actually had COVID, not just a mistaken positive test, she’s very, very likely to be immune at least in the near term (6 months, 1 year, ???) and once you are vaccinated you will be very likely to be immune too.

So it would be unlikely that either could contract it from the other even if the other is unknowingly carrying the virus.

And it’s also likely that neither are carrying the virus when you meet. If neither are carrying, then it becomes impossible for one to infect the other at that one encounter. Meeting tomorrow would be a separate roll of the same dice since either could have contracted it in the meantime. Net of whatever immunity you’ve each got from prior illness, vaccination, or both.

Want more certainty that that? Not gonna happen in this lifetime. Everything in life is probabilities. We’re just not used to thinking of them that way. There’s _always_ some probability you’ll be killed by their shuttle bus while walking across the parking lot at the old fart’s home.

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