I had a high temperature on Friday evening, above 39. I had started feeling chilled and achy earlier that afternoon and started isolating at home immediately. I booked and took a COVID test Saturday morning which came back negative by the time I woke up Sunday.
Since then fever is gone, though I still feel a little weak and tired. I hadn’t had any known exposure to COVID as I wfh and had only left my house once to do careful, masked grocery shopping in the week before I felt ill. My DCs are in secondary school and have been attending regularly through this half term. My DH ferries DD to and from school and goes into shops slightly more often than I do as a result, but he too is masked and careful and doesn’t linger. DH and DCs have shown no symptoms at all.
I’m 53 and reasonably fit and healthy otherwise. I had a flu jab in October in a Boots as I noticed they had openings as I was walking past (and therefore declined the free one I’d have been eligible for this weekend!). But for the pandemic I wouldn’t have given this episode a second thought but just have been grateful I was feeling better.
But if it’s not COVID, and unlikely to be flu, what else could have caused this spike in temperature? Should I be sceptical of the COVID test when I’m feeling better and my family is also, so far, completely fine?