Don't understand how we are all negative

[kissmelittleass]

My teenage ds tested positive on the 18/2 ( not in uk) myself Dh and other three children were told to go for a test the following day, results all negative.
Nine days later ( Saturday gone) we all had another test and results again were all negative!
We are now allowed out from tomorrow as is my son who tested positive, what I don't understand is how we were all negative when positive ds shares a room with his sibling.
My son made me a cup of tea the night before he got symptoms, I also gave him a hair trim same night so lots of contact.
He was also playing around with his younger sister night before, anyone he had been in contact with through work also tested negative?
Obviously delighted we were all negative but don't understand how when this virus is so contagious we all dodged it? Anyone have any idea?!

[ButtonReal]

Just the way it happens sometimes it appears.

One of our DC tested positive, also share a room with sibling and they are young so no chance of me or DH even remotely isolating.

None of us caught it (we all had negative tests).

[Leah2005]

Perhaps ds had a false positive?

[SexyGiraffe]

Maybe you had already built up antibodies to it through earlier exposure that you didn't know about.

[Gwegowygwiggs]

Or maybe it just simply isn't as contagious as we are led to believe

[ChocOrange1]

False positive probably

[Mindymomo]

You say you are not in the uk, so may depend on what variant of covid you have. The Kent variant that we now have in the uk, seems to be more contagious, but still some family/work members are not catching it despite being in close proximity.

[whatswithtodaytoday]

Did your son have symptoms?

I would assume you've all already had it.

[PrimeraVez]

We've had a similar situation here as well (also not in UK)

We are very close to another family and spend tons of time in and out of each other's houses. Their nanny tested positive, yet the rest of their family are negative, as is mine.

The day before she tested positive, their nanny had a 4 hour playdate with our nanny and youngest kid, including picking up and hugging my son when he fell over.

We're pretty sure her positive is true, because she's had some symptoms, albeit very mild.

[moominmomma1234]

I read somewhere that some people seem to be superspreaders and others not so, it could even be down to how loud they talk. This virus still has a lot of secrets to give up.

[BugsAndBeesAndBirdsAndButterfl]

I was positive but with mild symptoms (mild cough/fatigue mainly.)

None of my family tested positive and we isolated for the 10 days in a small house.

I can't figure it out and wondered about a false positive or whether some people don't spread so much.

[shenanigans5]

My good friend encountered this. Temporarily living with her parents so she caught it, her DH and DD who she was living with also (sharing bed with DH) didn’t get it.

I think in months/years to come we’ll learn more about the genetics side of things- certain gene combinations that predispose people to being susceptible and gene combos that offer protection. Within a family genetics can vary hugely.

[FishWithoutABike]

Some people spread it more than others. Unfortunately there is no way of predicting who will be a ‘super spreader’ and who won’t.

[BertieBotts]

Even if it is highly contagious there is always a small chance you won't catch something.

Even if something is not very contagious it can still infect a lot of people.

Plus the idea of "highly" vs "not very" contagious is probably not as simple as we think - I doubt for example that highly contagious = passes to 90% of people the original patient has any contact with. It's probably more like 10% meaning you're more likely to not catch it.

Your sample size of 3 is much too small to infer any statistical significance.

[Tigresswoods]

I know 2 families of 4 like this. In one it was the dad who got it. In the other an 11y old girl. In both situations no one else was positive. So off. Both just before Christmas.

[sanfranfibber]

Some of you could have already had it. I think Imperial said the chance of household transmission is 'only' 20%.

[QuidditchQueen]

The LFT tests for example have a false positive rate of 0.05% so 1/200 negative people tested will show a false positive -a high number - do likely to be the case with your son (and why all the testing about to haooen in schools risks chaotic outcome ☹️

[BertieBotts]

It's like if you have unprotected sex when you ovulate, it would be considered highly likely that you'll become pregnant. And that's very true.

However the chance is only about 20-25%. Five women could have unprotected sex when they are ovulating and only 1-2 would likely become pregnant. The other 3 or 4 would not. You are more likely to not get pregnant than to get pregnant, yet it is still correct to say that unprotected sex is highly likely to result in pregnancy. 1:5 or 1:4 is a high chance, even though it's more unlikely than likely.

Judging by a lot of these answers (plus the threads about "How are people still catching it??) people seem to think it's black and white, like if you have contact with an infected person you'll definitely catch COVID unless there was some kind of protection like a mask or distancing which in turn is 100% effective, so if you did these things then you won't catch it. Neither is true.

Most things/biology/probability doesn't work like that! If a COVID positive person is in a room full of people they will only pass it on to a few people in the room, not everyone. It's largely random.

[SilverGlitterBaubles]

I see this happen quite a lot where some members of the same household test positive and the others never so despite close contact. I guess it's similar to colds, flu and other illnesses one person in a household will get it but not everyone else does. The magic mystery of the human body.

[ihearttc]

We had the same situation at the end of Jan. my 16 year old DS tested positive but non of us did. 11 days later, the day I was due to go back to work so did my LFT and it came up positive. Followed 9 days later by DH. DS2 never got it at all.

[Bornlazy]

QuidditchQueen is 0.05 not 1 in 2000? With the lateral flow tests there is a much higher chance of a false negative than the other way.

[TimeForLunch]

Same here, ds(10) had it with mild symptoms and confirmed by a positive test. The rest of us didn't catch it despite carrying on as normal in the house.

[starfish4]

No one caught it from my friend's DD. My BIL caught at work and spread it to all his family, even his DD who'd moved into her BFs a few days before. My cousin had been mixing with all his family, 10/12 got it. I wonder if it caught be the amount of initial exposure, but that's just my thought.

[CornishYarg]

As others have said, it's far from certain that if one member of a household catches it, everyone in the household will. I've seen a figure of 50% for the in-household transmission rate and others on this thread are suggesting even lower figures. Either way, it's certainly a lot lower than 100%. I know 4 families where one person caught it but the rest of the family didn't.

As a result of this, the argument of "Well, the kids are mixing at school, so there's no extra risk if the parents mix as well or the kids go round each others houses," is incorrect.

[MorrisZapp]

When they were locking families in apartments in Wuhan not all family members caught it from others who were positive. I know lots of families with one or two positives where the others didn't get it.

My sister in law was ill for weeks with covid, only one of her two resident sons tested positive for it.

[Sparkletastic]

Did he have symptoms? If not likely to be a false positive.