Genuinely puzzled at antibody result

[TooOwls]

NHS staff testing, came back negative.

Frontline worker, saw covid patients before PPE was issued.

On top of that my partner came to self isolate with me. After 3 days he became unwell and tested positive for Covid. During those days we had shared a bed, had sex, exchanged saliva etc etc!

How have I managed to not catch it? I’m really really puzzled, I was sure I must have had it asymptomatically

Not once do you say you were ill or had symptoms?

I thought not everyone produced antibodies?

Or if you had it asymptomatically the antibodies have disappeared over time because you didn't produce enough in the first place?

I'm sure there was something that said even if you live with someone there was only a 50% chance of catching it. So it seems entirely possible. You just may never have contracted it.

False negative?? I thought they were more likely that false positives?

You haven't mentioned whether you were ill at all?

Well, there's a few possibilities.

• You were never infected
• You were infected but cleared the infection without producing antibodies
• You were infected, produced antibodies, but the test is a false negative.

I know two houses where one person has had it but no one else caught it. One of them had been sharing a bed with her type 2 diabetic retired hubby and he didn’t get it.
I had flu once but no one else in the house got it, hubby had flu on two other occasions and no one caught it.

Are they now doing antibody tests then? Not heard of in our area.

I wasn’t ill, no symptoms, just presumed I must have had it as have been in close proximity with a number of people who subsequently tested positive.

Aside from DP, I shared a tiny closed office with a nurse for 8 hrs sat right next to each other using the same keyboard (project deadline). The next day she went off very unwell for 3 weeks. I had nothing

It feels to me like the tests have been rushed out very quickly & may not be that reliable, tbh.
There's a theory that very mild cases don't develop antibodies, too.

@bombaychef, NHS staff are having antibody tests

This isn't the first time I've heard of only one partner getting it even when sharing a bed.
I am honestly beginning to think that despite what a nasty disease it can cause the virus isn't actually as easily transmitted as we have been led to believe in the generally healthy population. Maybe washing our hands was always enough?

I don't think they've even started in our hospital.It will be interesting.

Both of the people I know that have had it have not presented with the continuous cough and fever. One had tonsillitis, the other felt a bit off and lost her appetite.
I wonder how many others have had it and don’t realise.

I have read a report of a woman who tested positive for active infection via PCR swab and subsequently tested negative to an antibody test. She was asymptomatic but was tested as a contact of someone who tested positive with symptoms.

Sorry, I don't have a link, but DH said it's been in the news that one of these antibody tests has now been seen to miss 1/3 of positive cases.

Imo we will find people are catching it within a family just asymptomatically and then some dont get antibodies. Use t cells
Or in uk its possible we were exposed from nov/dec.
Hopefully they will investigate these groups.
Maybe other factors vit d or immunity to other coronavirus.

@SteelyPanther

Both of the people I know that have had it have not presented with the continuous cough and fever. One had tonsillitis, the other felt a bit off and lost her appetite. I wonder how many others have had it and don’t realise.

But isn't this the opposite, the OP's test says she hasn't had it which as she didn't have any symptoms or feel unwell isn't a total shock.

There have been many threads already where one family member has had a positive test and others negative, I'm not at all surprised.

I know of healthcare workers who tested positive for covid but negative for antibodies 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just a thought, if you have it and clear it with a t-cell response, if you were to catch it again would your bodies response be the same or would the possibility of serious illness still be there?

I think it's possible to have had it but not produced any anybodies, particularly if you had no or very mild symptons

*"Only 10 per cent of people who are infected with the coronavirus develop antibodies, a professor claims.

Professor Karol Sikora, an advisor to the World Health Organisation, said the majority would have a negative result on an antibody test, even though they have had the coronavirus."

This is being reported today

Lots of people on the other antibodies threads were convinced they’d had it with symptoms but tested negative.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8396195/Professor-says-10-people-coronavirus-develop-antibodies.html Link to @jrob post

www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985

Here is an article published by NATURE dating back to 2015 where the scientists from the Wuhan lab and US create a chimeric virus (multiple generations to make it infectious). The mice got very ill/died and they found hardly any antibodies. The article explicitly says that this is Gain of Function testing which the US (Obama at the time) put a stop to as it presented such risk.

I dont understand why you are shocked at the results when you have had no indication whatsoever that you contracted the virus. I've read some people have a natural immunity, maybe you are one of those. Or just really lucky that you didnt catch it from your partner. I know of 2 people that didnt contract it from a partner, despite sleeping together throughout, one of whom had a number of underlying conditions.