Family member has Covid-type symptoms but has shown up negative on a test strip. Flu like symptoms but with sore throat and cold type feeling mixed in. Is this what the latest variant is like?
A good friend just caught Covid, she tested positive right away. So did her hubby and the person who was the likely source.
Your family member may have something else.
Might want to give it another few days. When I had Covid a couple of years ago, I tested negative for the first four days I was symptomatic, then had my first positive on day 5 of symptoms.
When I had a possible exposure, I went to an urgent care clinic for a test rather than using an at-home one. I was told by the staff that their tests were more accurate than the at-home ones. Plus there’s the possibility of user error with an at-home test.
You know what else causes flu-like symptoms? The flu. As well as about ten thousand other miscellaneous bugs.
That is a common experience. It is also the case that the sensitivity of antigen tests have not been very good when compared to PCR tests, which is why a positive result needs to be verified by a second antigen test or PCR. However, PCR can tend to have specificity problems because for the large number of amplification cycles typically run the presence of any residual SARS-CoV-2 RNA can generate a positive without active infection.
But they symptoms could also be caused any number of other respiratory pathogens or allergens which have been circulating at somewhat higher out of season rates (although still well below the epidemic threshold for influenza and parainfluenza viral contagion).
Stranger
Not much different w the latest strains vs the recent older ones. It feels like being ill. And there’s no material difference in the ability of current home tests to detect the latest versus the original v1.0 COVID or any variant since
So if you’re thinking there’s some new stealthy COVID out there, that’s wrong thinking.
Just spotted this oldish thread and got worried: I travelled last week, returned home on an overnight train, and nearly immediately started showing early “cold” symptoms.
As well as not-so-early gastrointestinal symptoms, which were much more urgent to deal with. But I did a COVID test on Monday, Tuesday, and again today (as my “cold” symptoms have gotten considerably worse).
All negative, as I told them at urgent care. When I did have COVID, in 2022, the first test was negative, but the PCR test at the drugstore was positive (at which point, so was the home test). I’m relieved to hear that the rumors of false negatives seem to be untrue.
They also did a flu test at urgent care, not that I feel “flu-ish” but just to be complete. Also negative.
I guess people CAN still catch plain old colds. And I’m overdue (I usually get one every 3 years and it’s been 5).
I have not had much faith in the sensitivity of the lateral flow antigen tests; it is difficult to estimate effectiveness since there are very few PCR tests being run outside of hospitals for comparison but I’ve seen estimates as low as the mid-sixty percent, and they often don’t show positive until several days after symptom onset. In terms of verifying non-infection I don’t think they are very useful, and if you feel COVID-19-like symptoms you should probably isolate from at least vulnerable individuals regardless of a negative result; if it isn’t COVID-19 then it may be RSV or any of a number of severe respiratory or influenza-like illnesses that are still communicable.
Stranger
When it was at its height, I swore I had it. I mean every single freaking symptom. Quarantined myself in the house only coming out to take the test. Negative. False negative obviously. Took the test again. Negative again. Later took the antibody test. Negative number 3. Not sure what I had but it wasn’t a textbook case of covid apparently.