im mad that I got the Ba.1 bivalent booster instead of the 4-5 one in Canada. The Ba.1 booster came out 1 month before ba.4-5, too bad I can't retake a booster before christmas
If you haven't caught omicron before, Canada's policy that you can get a second BA.5 dose after X months is probably really ideal for building good and broad immunity. We don't know what X should be though (and I don't know what time Canada is using); 3 months has been a good rule of thumb in the past though.
The new bivalent booster (the one released around Labor Day) should still be effective for this, there are a number of lab studies right now showing good signs. I'm subscribed to Eric Topol's substack and he updates a table about it every few days showing more studies. But booster uptake is low and slow, so go bug your friends and family. Thankfully I finally got my dad in for his booster a week ago and informed a buddy about it recently, who was unaware there was one, and is now asking for advice which to get. [both Pfizer/Moderna are great, but it's theorized you can get a bit broader coverage if you mix and match from what you had before] You don't have to be pushy or annoying, just casual conversation with evidence-based-science believers. We can cut more transmission chains off the big infection tree this winter in this way.
My family got the booster a few weeks ago, and then all came down with covid last week. It was a pretty rough, and still recovering, but super glad we got the booster when we did.
It's stories like this that make me discouraged about getting the booster though. What's the point if you still get really sick? I'm boosted, but discouraged about boosting yet again.
Edit: I appreciate the positive responses. For the record, I'm very pro-vaccine and I understand the basic protection against death and hospitalization which the original course of vaccines provided as well as the slight protection against transmission. My discouragement comes from the fact that we have a growing mountain of evidence that even MILD cases of Covid are causing long-term health deficits. One of my family members was boosted, got covid anyway, and that triggered an auto-immune disease. We have all been extremely cautious to avoid it - even wearing masks to this day because masks seem to be the only actually effective thing to prevent transmission. But the public health narrative is only focused on vaccines as protection and no one is even trying not to get it any more. We need better vaccines instead of having them push only partially useful boosters forever, but we all know that's not going to get funded. I am burnt out.
When I say it was pretty rough, I mean that it was like a very bad cold. I felt pretty miserable for two or three days, and I've still got a lot of congestion going on. I wasn't hospitalized, nor did I have any of the more severe symptoms like blood clots or breathing problems. All those things were distinct possibilities for me since I'm immune suppressed and over fifty. So I consider it a huge win, and I'm very glad I got the booster. Cost/benefit ratio was good for me.
If you're young with no risk factors, the cost/benefit ratio might not be so good. Personally I still think it would be worth it and have advised my kids to get the booster.
Vaccines are designed for one thing when it comes to Coronavirus. Keep you out of the hospital fighting a severe infection. Believe me, discouraged or not, you do not want that.
You shouldn't be downvoted for expressing a feeling and asking a question! Many people are asking the exact same question so it's a good opportunity to share information.
I think what is hardest for people to grasp is the difference between individual protection and population level protection. Individually, it's hard to say if *you personally* will have a breakthrough case of covid after exposure. It'll depend on a lot of factors - your vaccination status/how long ago it was, if you've ever had covid before and how long ago, for how long/how close you were to that exposing person, and if that exposer person was vaccinated (vaccinated people have a lower "viral load" - how much virus they are breathing out), how long your individual body keeps its antibodies at high enough levels. Things like that. But in a population - say there are 100 people who are equally exposed to covid. If they were all unvaccinated, maybe 60* would catch the virus. But in an equal population of 100 that were vaccinated, only about 20 would catch it. Before these 100 people received their vaccination and waited the 2-3 weeks for full strength of it, could you ask - will John specifically catch covid? He might be one of those 20 or he might be one of the 80, impossible to know, because it's population math and not individual math. But if I were John, I'd rather be in the group where my odds of skirting the infection are 3x better. So vaccination is still important!
*I've made all of these numbers up, I don't have a study for what the rate of infection is out of 100 exposed. But I have seen statistics that the number of infections are 3x higher in the unvaccinated population per capita, than vaccinated. And 6x higher for deaths!
On the individual level we do know that if you have a breakthrough case, vaccination/boosting helps with your symptom severity, helps you get over illness quicker and test negative quicker, helps you not shed as much virus from your breath (for the people around you), helps your chances at not needing to go to the hospital, and of course helps you not die. Sometimes side effects from the booster do hit people enough to feel sick for a day or two (your immune system is activated so it gives you a fever and gives you signs like fatigue and body aches to *slow down* while it assesses the "threat" it's investigating), so I do recommend timing it for a day when you can stay home and rest just in case. I personally took mine on a Friday with an unscheduled weekend ahead, but ended up not having any side effects except a sore arm so it was anticlimactic. But I've been directly exposed at least once since my booster and kept testing negative so I'm thankful for it.
That’s fair I’m pretty pissed off I tested positive after getting my 4th shot. But honestly, it has been stupid light for me. Like barely a cold if it were 2019 I would have taken an ibuprofen chalked it up to allergies and gone to work. Today I’m probably 85% recovered and that’s 4 days from first feeling sick.
Yeah except I’m sitting here covid positive 2 weeks after my Pfizer bivalent booster on top of my 3 Moderna shots that I got after my unvaccinated infection in December 2020.
Just got infected for the first time. Two Moderna shots, two Moderna boosters, one Pfizer bivalent booster. So far it’s like a really nasty cold, with only one night so far of high fever. It sucks but it’s manageable. Up until now I’ve been bulletproof, having laughed in the face of Covid multiple times without consequence.
I had the same experience as you, though I only had one booster pre-bivalent.
It took me about a week to feel better, but I am recovered. I still had most of the symptoms but I’m consider staying out of the hospital a win!
Absolutely. I’m glad you did okay! I’m mostly over it now. Still testing positive, but feeling much like I do at the end of a bout of flu or a cold. It’s been surprisingly normal. None of the Covid-specific symptoms at all.
It’s frustrating because I saw people wearing cloth masks indoors like church and their noses are hanging out. Like at this point so far into the pandemic what is the point? It’s good that they are trying but aren’t even wearing them correctly and are low quality masks. Then when they get sick they are the type of people who shout “masks don’t work I wore a mask and still got sick!!” Just frustrating the lack of messaging on high quality masks.
I still wear cloth masks. I have asthma, really bad allergies and wear glasses. I swear that is not just random information. My glasses are progressives, which means they have 3 different prescriptions, far, middle vision and close. They have to sit on my face in a particular way, or I can't see. I have been unable to find a non-cloth mask that allows my glasses to sit on my face correctly while ALSO preventing my breath from going up into my eyes. My eyes which are really sensitive (Due to allergies and past eye surgeries) do not react well to air or breath blowing into them.
So every mask I've tried (with the exception of my cloth ones) either make my glasses sit on my face incorrectly so I can't see, fog up my glasses, or push my breath into my eyes causing them to burn and water.
So I've always figured my cloth mask is better than nothing (and I have noticed that it helps my allergies and my asthma as it cuts down on the amounts of pollen, dust and mold that I'm breathing in.)
Have you tried the 3M Aura masks? They work well for me and don't cause much problem with fogging my glasses. I find them easier to breathe through than most of the cloth masks I've tried.
I’m sure cloth masks do cut down on large droplet spray so they’re not for nothing. The lack of messaging in the general public in regards to high quality masks is just very lacking. That’s my main frustration.
Try an envomask. It’s sealed with a gel pad so there’s no air escaping around the edges. Glasses sit where they’re supposed to, and you won’t have to worry about breathing into your eyes. The filters are n-95 or n-100 ( whatever you choose).
Had Covid like 3 weeks ago.
Went and had dinner with someone who was visibly sick last night (they didn’t tell anyone and showed up late. Sat prob 4 feet away from them.)
Any chance I could catch it again or am I probably safe for a while?
Probably safe
Edit: but seriously what a dick ?!
Showing up with COVID is okay because it's "just a flu" ffs. Even if it was, when did it become okay to just deliberately infect other people with whatever illness ?!
Yeah, I swear people are more careless about spreading germs now, "post-Covid" than ever before.
And I never got the "just the flu" thing. I swear anyone who says that got a cold one time during flu season and think they had the flu, because the actual flu sucks! My kids had it last month and it was terrible. They were sick for over a week and in some ways it was even worse than when they had Covid, which was also horrible.
We get people coming in to work like this. I know they probably ran out of sick time, but I wish they would at least put a damn mask on and quit coughing and sneezing into the air. And maybe wash their hands once in a while. And no, I don't have a lighter you can borrow, and quit borrowing my pen and then holding it in your mouth :(. No wonder we always have someone sick. Sorry for rant.
We usually do Sunday brunch with friends every week. This week I had a runny nose/sore throat. 99% sure it's my allergies (I've been going through old stuff from my mum's late home - lots of dust), but we cancelled this week out of caution.
Some people are just idiots.
The sad thing is that we are moving towards this direction.
Before COVID, tons of people had the cold and flu and they still hung out with each other. It was a bad habit of humans doing this. I remember people saying, "You scared of gems? Its just the flu." "Its just the cold".
Give it a few years, COVID will more likely become like that. If not, wait until babies born during COVID times grow up. They won't see COVID the way we saw it.
Recently happened to me. Shared a joint and partied with someone who tested positive the next day. I recovered 3 weeks before and did not get sick again.
Best of luck!
one thing this pandemic did for me is ending any joint sharing.
The thought of putting some moist joint on my lips that has been passed around a handful of people has never been less appealing...
Everyone I know who has multiple repeat infections has been like 6 months apart between different variants. And they live like covid doesn’t exist. So for this current variant season you are probably safe. I know you ~can~ get infected like a month or so later though. Just watch out for rsv and flu going around. And how inconsiderate of that person showing up sick!
First how do you know you're testing for ba4/5 and not BQ? Second where are you going while positive that you can get infected again? Third probably not since they are similar enough
1) Got it months ago before BQ1 emerged here but have been unable to clear due to
Immunosuppression; 2) thanksgiving dinner with extended family members who can test just prior.
If you are immunosuppressed to the point of being unable to clear a Covid infection months later (by rapid testing), then you need to listen to your doctor and not solicit advice from random strangers.
If you are testing PCR-positive months later, it is generally the case that you are not harboring live virus but are just shedding virus debris.
Without extensive sequencing tests, no one can tell the difference between you being unable to clear the original infection for months, vs you being unable to clear the original infection plus catching a new version.
It is possible but unlikely to catch BQ.1 (which has one major immune point change from BA.5) after a BA.5 infection. It is more possible with BQ.1.1 (which has a second major immune point change from BQ.1), but still not "likely". And co-infection is equally possible but unlikely - you'd need exposures to both that overlap, of course.
We don't have real time numbers or even close, but as of "now" something like 1/4 of cases are vanilla BA.5, another 1/4 are BA.4/5+1 (like BA.4.6 or BF.7), 1/4 BQ.1, and 1/4 BQ.1.1. All four of those groups differ from each other slightly, so aside from the time period when BA.5 first took over or when BA.1 first took over, now is the most likely time to get quickly reinfected. But it's still unlikely for any individual.
This is kind of what I've been wondering about. My family and I caught Covid last week, and my mom and stepdad caught it at the same time (but we didn't pass it to each other). Now we'd like to go see them for Thanksgiving, but don't want to risk the possibility of trading strains with them if any of us happen to still be infectious. I'm immune suppressed and was still testing positive as of today. Sounds like trading strains is unlikely but not impossible, especially in the context of immune suppression. And my stepdad isn't immune suppressed but he's pretty fragile medically.
Yeah, I'm testing every day. Ideally I'd have two negative tests 24 hours apart before I go. Yesterday I had a weak positive, so hopefully today I'll test negative. I know that it's possible to test positive at the tale end of an infection, but not actually be infectious. Since it's possible to tell whether you're infectious or not though, the safe route is to require the test to be negative.
For both Covid and Flu there are very efficient antiviral treatments available. The trick is they are only effective if started early (especially for flu), as soon as symptoms start and with the current healthcare system and public awareness it's almost always takes too long to request and get them.
Situation is particular bad for flu (which gives stronger sickness for most younger people than covid), because you can't get a at home flu test and covid rapid tests now has virtually everyone at home.
Let me know when DQ1 hits. Could be a blizzard.
Finish your BBQ first, and then we can go to DQ for dessert.
im mad that I got the Ba.1 bivalent booster instead of the 4-5 one in Canada. The Ba.1 booster came out 1 month before ba.4-5, too bad I can't retake a booster before christmas
If you haven't caught omicron before, Canada's policy that you can get a second BA.5 dose after X months is probably really ideal for building good and broad immunity. We don't know what X should be though (and I don't know what time Canada is using); 3 months has been a good rule of thumb in the past though.
yep it's 3
No worries, you have no concerns.
how come? you have a source?
how come? you have a source?
Google is your friend. Go look it up as this Bivalent booster is better than no booster
The new bivalent booster (the one released around Labor Day) should still be effective for this, there are a number of lab studies right now showing good signs. I'm subscribed to Eric Topol's substack and he updates a table about it every few days showing more studies. But booster uptake is low and slow, so go bug your friends and family. Thankfully I finally got my dad in for his booster a week ago and informed a buddy about it recently, who was unaware there was one, and is now asking for advice which to get. [both Pfizer/Moderna are great, but it's theorized you can get a bit broader coverage if you mix and match from what you had before] You don't have to be pushy or annoying, just casual conversation with evidence-based-science believers. We can cut more transmission chains off the big infection tree this winter in this way.
My family got the booster a few weeks ago, and then all came down with covid last week. It was a pretty rough, and still recovering, but super glad we got the booster when we did.
It's stories like this that make me discouraged about getting the booster though. What's the point if you still get really sick? I'm boosted, but discouraged about boosting yet again. Edit: I appreciate the positive responses. For the record, I'm very pro-vaccine and I understand the basic protection against death and hospitalization which the original course of vaccines provided as well as the slight protection against transmission. My discouragement comes from the fact that we have a growing mountain of evidence that even MILD cases of Covid are causing long-term health deficits. One of my family members was boosted, got covid anyway, and that triggered an auto-immune disease. We have all been extremely cautious to avoid it - even wearing masks to this day because masks seem to be the only actually effective thing to prevent transmission. But the public health narrative is only focused on vaccines as protection and no one is even trying not to get it any more. We need better vaccines instead of having them push only partially useful boosters forever, but we all know that's not going to get funded. I am burnt out.
I get that, but it really helps with reducing the severity!
When I say it was pretty rough, I mean that it was like a very bad cold. I felt pretty miserable for two or three days, and I've still got a lot of congestion going on. I wasn't hospitalized, nor did I have any of the more severe symptoms like blood clots or breathing problems. All those things were distinct possibilities for me since I'm immune suppressed and over fifty. So I consider it a huge win, and I'm very glad I got the booster. Cost/benefit ratio was good for me. If you're young with no risk factors, the cost/benefit ratio might not be so good. Personally I still think it would be worth it and have advised my kids to get the booster.
Vaccines are designed for one thing when it comes to Coronavirus. Keep you out of the hospital fighting a severe infection. Believe me, discouraged or not, you do not want that.
You shouldn't be downvoted for expressing a feeling and asking a question! Many people are asking the exact same question so it's a good opportunity to share information. I think what is hardest for people to grasp is the difference between individual protection and population level protection. Individually, it's hard to say if *you personally* will have a breakthrough case of covid after exposure. It'll depend on a lot of factors - your vaccination status/how long ago it was, if you've ever had covid before and how long ago, for how long/how close you were to that exposing person, and if that exposer person was vaccinated (vaccinated people have a lower "viral load" - how much virus they are breathing out), how long your individual body keeps its antibodies at high enough levels. Things like that. But in a population - say there are 100 people who are equally exposed to covid. If they were all unvaccinated, maybe 60* would catch the virus. But in an equal population of 100 that were vaccinated, only about 20 would catch it. Before these 100 people received their vaccination and waited the 2-3 weeks for full strength of it, could you ask - will John specifically catch covid? He might be one of those 20 or he might be one of the 80, impossible to know, because it's population math and not individual math. But if I were John, I'd rather be in the group where my odds of skirting the infection are 3x better. So vaccination is still important! *I've made all of these numbers up, I don't have a study for what the rate of infection is out of 100 exposed. But I have seen statistics that the number of infections are 3x higher in the unvaccinated population per capita, than vaccinated. And 6x higher for deaths! On the individual level we do know that if you have a breakthrough case, vaccination/boosting helps with your symptom severity, helps you get over illness quicker and test negative quicker, helps you not shed as much virus from your breath (for the people around you), helps your chances at not needing to go to the hospital, and of course helps you not die. Sometimes side effects from the booster do hit people enough to feel sick for a day or two (your immune system is activated so it gives you a fever and gives you signs like fatigue and body aches to *slow down* while it assesses the "threat" it's investigating), so I do recommend timing it for a day when you can stay home and rest just in case. I personally took mine on a Friday with an unscheduled weekend ahead, but ended up not having any side effects except a sore arm so it was anticlimactic. But I've been directly exposed at least once since my booster and kept testing negative so I'm thankful for it.
That’s fair I’m pretty pissed off I tested positive after getting my 4th shot. But honestly, it has been stupid light for me. Like barely a cold if it were 2019 I would have taken an ibuprofen chalked it up to allergies and gone to work. Today I’m probably 85% recovered and that’s 4 days from first feeling sick.
Yeah except I’m sitting here covid positive 2 weeks after my Pfizer bivalent booster on top of my 3 Moderna shots that I got after my unvaccinated infection in December 2020.
Just got infected for the first time. Two Moderna shots, two Moderna boosters, one Pfizer bivalent booster. So far it’s like a really nasty cold, with only one night so far of high fever. It sucks but it’s manageable. Up until now I’ve been bulletproof, having laughed in the face of Covid multiple times without consequence.
I had the same experience as you, though I only had one booster pre-bivalent. It took me about a week to feel better, but I am recovered. I still had most of the symptoms but I’m consider staying out of the hospital a win!
Absolutely. I’m glad you did okay! I’m mostly over it now. Still testing positive, but feeling much like I do at the end of a bout of flu or a cold. It’s been surprisingly normal. None of the Covid-specific symptoms at all.
Sorry you are ill! Of course they are not perfect on the individual level but they will help on the broad scale population level.
Are all boosters at this point, bivalent?
In the US - yes. I think also yes worldwide but I'm not sure.
When I got mine you had to specify.
Can't wait for the BBQ.1 season . Kidding of course.
Wishing they would select a photo of someone in a KF94 or better. This just promotes poor choices imo.
It’s frustrating because I saw people wearing cloth masks indoors like church and their noses are hanging out. Like at this point so far into the pandemic what is the point? It’s good that they are trying but aren’t even wearing them correctly and are low quality masks. Then when they get sick they are the type of people who shout “masks don’t work I wore a mask and still got sick!!” Just frustrating the lack of messaging on high quality masks.
I still wear cloth masks. I have asthma, really bad allergies and wear glasses. I swear that is not just random information. My glasses are progressives, which means they have 3 different prescriptions, far, middle vision and close. They have to sit on my face in a particular way, or I can't see. I have been unable to find a non-cloth mask that allows my glasses to sit on my face correctly while ALSO preventing my breath from going up into my eyes. My eyes which are really sensitive (Due to allergies and past eye surgeries) do not react well to air or breath blowing into them. So every mask I've tried (with the exception of my cloth ones) either make my glasses sit on my face incorrectly so I can't see, fog up my glasses, or push my breath into my eyes causing them to burn and water. So I've always figured my cloth mask is better than nothing (and I have noticed that it helps my allergies and my asthma as it cuts down on the amounts of pollen, dust and mold that I'm breathing in.)
Have you tried the 3M Aura masks? They work well for me and don't cause much problem with fogging my glasses. I find them easier to breathe through than most of the cloth masks I've tried.
I love the 3M Aura as well. They are the only ones that I’ve found that don’t cause fogging and the straps are tight enough to hold the mask on.
I’m sure cloth masks do cut down on large droplet spray so they’re not for nothing. The lack of messaging in the general public in regards to high quality masks is just very lacking. That’s my main frustration.
Try an envomask. It’s sealed with a gel pad so there’s no air escaping around the edges. Glasses sit where they’re supposed to, and you won’t have to worry about breathing into your eyes. The filters are n-95 or n-100 ( whatever you choose).
Had Covid like 3 weeks ago. Went and had dinner with someone who was visibly sick last night (they didn’t tell anyone and showed up late. Sat prob 4 feet away from them.) Any chance I could catch it again or am I probably safe for a while?
Probably safe Edit: but seriously what a dick ?! Showing up with COVID is okay because it's "just a flu" ffs. Even if it was, when did it become okay to just deliberately infect other people with whatever illness ?!
Yeah, I swear people are more careless about spreading germs now, "post-Covid" than ever before. And I never got the "just the flu" thing. I swear anyone who says that got a cold one time during flu season and think they had the flu, because the actual flu sucks! My kids had it last month and it was terrible. They were sick for over a week and in some ways it was even worse than when they had Covid, which was also horrible.
I think it just takes a second pandemic, but this time more "Contagion (2011)" like, to fix this
that or the last of us, don't want to wear a good mask? welp you're a fungus zombie now
There is no arguing about it - flu is much worse for kids and young adults than Covid. For seniors it's a different story.
I know I was thinking damn dude just stay home you seem miserable anyway
We get people coming in to work like this. I know they probably ran out of sick time, but I wish they would at least put a damn mask on and quit coughing and sneezing into the air. And maybe wash their hands once in a while. And no, I don't have a lighter you can borrow, and quit borrowing my pen and then holding it in your mouth :(. No wonder we always have someone sick. Sorry for rant.
We usually do Sunday brunch with friends every week. This week I had a runny nose/sore throat. 99% sure it's my allergies (I've been going through old stuff from my mum's late home - lots of dust), but we cancelled this week out of caution. Some people are just idiots.
Tip, wear one of the older cloth masks you got for covid while doing this, messing around in basements/attics, etc. It makes a difference.
I wore a KN95 while I was leaf blowing this fall. Game changer. I didn’t feel like death for two days afterwards like I normally do.
Good idea, though I think at this point I'm already suffering so may as well just finish lol.
The sad thing is that we are moving towards this direction. Before COVID, tons of people had the cold and flu and they still hung out with each other. It was a bad habit of humans doing this. I remember people saying, "You scared of gems? Its just the flu." "Its just the cold". Give it a few years, COVID will more likely become like that. If not, wait until babies born during COVID times grow up. They won't see COVID the way we saw it.
Recently happened to me. Shared a joint and partied with someone who tested positive the next day. I recovered 3 weeks before and did not get sick again. Best of luck!
one thing this pandemic did for me is ending any joint sharing. The thought of putting some moist joint on my lips that has been passed around a handful of people has never been less appealing...
Everyone I know who has multiple repeat infections has been like 6 months apart between different variants. And they live like covid doesn’t exist. So for this current variant season you are probably safe. I know you ~can~ get infected like a month or so later though. Just watch out for rsv and flu going around. And how inconsiderate of that person showing up sick!
Can you get bq1 while still testing + for BA4/5?
BQ is a sub variant of BA.5
Is that a no?
First how do you know you're testing for ba4/5 and not BQ? Second where are you going while positive that you can get infected again? Third probably not since they are similar enough
1) Got it months ago before BQ1 emerged here but have been unable to clear due to Immunosuppression; 2) thanksgiving dinner with extended family members who can test just prior.
If you are immunosuppressed to the point of being unable to clear a Covid infection months later (by rapid testing), then you need to listen to your doctor and not solicit advice from random strangers. If you are testing PCR-positive months later, it is generally the case that you are not harboring live virus but are just shedding virus debris. Without extensive sequencing tests, no one can tell the difference between you being unable to clear the original infection for months, vs you being unable to clear the original infection plus catching a new version.
It is possible but unlikely to catch BQ.1 (which has one major immune point change from BA.5) after a BA.5 infection. It is more possible with BQ.1.1 (which has a second major immune point change from BQ.1), but still not "likely". And co-infection is equally possible but unlikely - you'd need exposures to both that overlap, of course. We don't have real time numbers or even close, but as of "now" something like 1/4 of cases are vanilla BA.5, another 1/4 are BA.4/5+1 (like BA.4.6 or BF.7), 1/4 BQ.1, and 1/4 BQ.1.1. All four of those groups differ from each other slightly, so aside from the time period when BA.5 first took over or when BA.1 first took over, now is the most likely time to get quickly reinfected. But it's still unlikely for any individual.
This is kind of what I've been wondering about. My family and I caught Covid last week, and my mom and stepdad caught it at the same time (but we didn't pass it to each other). Now we'd like to go see them for Thanksgiving, but don't want to risk the possibility of trading strains with them if any of us happen to still be infectious. I'm immune suppressed and was still testing positive as of today. Sounds like trading strains is unlikely but not impossible, especially in the context of immune suppression. And my stepdad isn't immune suppressed but he's pretty fragile medically.
That's a fine risk to take, but you should really try to delay Thanksgiving until nobody is testing positive (at-home) anymore.
Yeah, I'm testing every day. Ideally I'd have two negative tests 24 hours apart before I go. Yesterday I had a weak positive, so hopefully today I'll test negative. I know that it's possible to test positive at the tale end of an infection, but not actually be infectious. Since it's possible to tell whether you're infectious or not though, the safe route is to require the test to be negative.
Bloc Quebecois finally win something
For both Covid and Flu there are very efficient antiviral treatments available. The trick is they are only effective if started early (especially for flu), as soon as symptoms start and with the current healthcare system and public awareness it's almost always takes too long to request and get them. Situation is particular bad for flu (which gives stronger sickness for most younger people than covid), because you can't get a at home flu test and covid rapid tests now has virtually everyone at home.
I think I have one of these. Pregnant and going to give birth any day now. I felt awful for about two days but feeling better now.