"If I ever needed to hunt in a tuxedo, then this would be the rifle I'd take." - okie john
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." - Michel De Montaigne
I'm still not 100% certain, but it is looking more & more likely that I had a false positive.
1/1: I was exposed to someone who later developed a fever, but who ultimately tested negative for covid (as did everyone else they and I contacted)
1/6: I tested positive PCR, but never developed any symptoms
1/9: I tested negative PCR
1/11: I tested negative PCR
1/15: I tested negative for the IgG antibody
According to my reading, most people should have had antibodies after 14 days, but some do take longer:
I'll get another routine antibody test when I donate blood on Feb 1. Even still, the CDC's position is that 1 positive PCR means you had covid, regardless of however many negative antibody tests you get.
So having a good possibility of being exposed with multiple acquaintances being sick midweek and testing positive late week, and me having contact with them all last weekend, I went and got tested today. I'm waiting on results which should be back by tomorrow sometime. I just took the time to read the info link from the CDC and this jumped right out and slapped me. I mean What the proverbial fuck? Is there a valid biological/medical reason for this or is it gerrymandering the numbers? Honest question.
Full document here:
https://www.fda.gov/media/134921/download
ETA: I feel fine and have no symptoms but needed to know as I'm a caregiver to my 80 year old mother who just completed chemo/radiation.
Well an uncle signed up to get tested, showed up and had to wait. He got tired of waiting and left without getting tested. The next week he gets notified he tested positive.
I don’t see the point in getting tested personally.
Prayers to all the sick and to those affected by this virus.
This kind of shit really pisses me off because my city is currently reporting 20%+ positivity rate and the next town over is reporting 60%+. We've been staying away from my mom and my inlaws because we feel we're in the middle of the effing hot zone and don't want to risk getting them sick. I didn't see my dad the last 8 months of his life and now it looks like the stats that made us keep our distance are being cooked.
Chris
I'm not involved in COVID testing. However, pooling of samples is fairly common with a lot of testing. If a pooled sample comes back as positive, then every single sample within the pooled sample usually gets tested individually to see which one(s) are positive. It's a way to run a lot of samples thru a lab very efficiently.
The potential downside to pooling is that the tested analyte (i.e. Covid) may be present but below the Detection Limit because of dilution by all the other negative samples. Therefore the pooled sample looks to be negative, when in fact at least one of the individual samples is positive but just at a very low level. (Lab nerds - feel free to weigh in here).
I think the risk is fairly small. Ask the lab if your sample was pooled. And can you test again? In my county I can request a test whenever I want.
Last edited by Mark D; 01-18-2021 at 02:14 AM.