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?!

I’ve also seen a figure of about 50% for household transmission which is interesting considering how transmissible this virus is supposed to be.

We aren’t allowed to sit on benches with people and must stay 2m away from others outdoors where transmission is low. Yet people sharing the same bed and air only get ill about 50% of the time.

I think super spreaders come in to play and yes genetics.

@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.

This

Interesting replies! Great reading!
To those who asked if he had symptoms the answer is yes he woke up that morning with a severe headache, extreme tiredness even after ten hours sleep, pains in his joints and legs, sore throat and also felt very cold.
He didn't have the typical symptoms we hear of NO cough, fever, loss of smell or taste , he slept after his test the first day for about 20 hours I stood at his door way trying to call him but he was very out of it but I could see he was ok I even entered his room a couple of times ( this was before I knew the results of test) .

He has asthma yet never affected his breathing thank god, he has a part time job in the local supermarket and his work colleagues tested negative.
In answer to those thinking the rest of the household ( five of us) could of had it in the week or so before I really doubt it, none of us had any symptoms at all, dh works from home he barely even goes out for a walk.
I have underlying conditions as does my youngest dd so apart from a walk maybe twice a week none of us venture out too much nor mix with anyone apart from positive ds with his little job, all college and schooling online.

We had similar in January. Household of 7, two members tested positive at the same time. The rest of us negative and also LFT tested negative since then. Smallish house considering the family size. No possibility of isolating from one another either. The positive members of household had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever.

Maybe it depends on whether it is the variant version or not.
I'm sure it will all come out in the wash - here in the UK we are certainly recording stats on everything. It will make for some interesting reading in the end.

There's not really anything to not understand, it may be a different %age in your country but inter-household transmission has never been anywhere near 100%, I believe the UK is under 25% now

Statistically wouldn't it be more surprising if you all caught it?

I do wander about the super spreader idea - my Dad tested positive he lives with my sibling and their family & his wife and family - all the adults tested positive and only 1 of the children (the other 3 never had symptoms so didn’t get tested)
He had to let his work know who he had close contact with & gave them the names of work colleagues- half of them all tested positive ! We tease my Dad that he was a super spreader- thankfully no one got seriously ill. Except my Dad who needed a hospital visit for a drip & antibiotics (no ventilation or anything) and he’s all fine now.

But we know 3 other families where the husband or wife positive but no one else in the family tested positive!

I heard of somebody who fell pregnant from infected husband but didn't catch it herself

Because the government decided to make you believe that you could catch a virus from walking past a person and you did believe it. Make of that what you will.

It has always always always always been the case that if someone around you is ill you might catch that illness or you might not. That's how biology works. The fact that people are baffled by it just indicates how incredibly poor people's science education is and how their lack of knowledge makes them credulous nincompoops who genuinely believe that someone breathing near them in an outdoor space is a risk.

I fucking despair.

A study found the is a 1 in 10 chance of passing it on within your household, though this increases for people with co-morbidities.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776908?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=022621

Are there really many false positives?

TheDaily - I must have caught it from outdoor transmission. 2 different track and trace people said to me they hear 2 or 3 cases like that a day (probably admist tons of more conventional cases!)

That's why I think its mad you can catch it from walking outdoors and yet not spread it to those you live with!

I didn't believe I could catch it outdoors tbh... until I did!

70 percent of people with covid don't spread it to anyone. So that's how.

Wow I didn't realise it was that high. That's really interesting. So there are some who spread it to lots of people and most who don't spread at all?

TheDaily didn't say that you can't catch it outdoors. She is just talking about how probability works. Something being a high chance doesn't mean it will definitely happen and something being a low chance doesn't mean it definitely won't happen.

You know when you're playing Frustration and you really, really need to roll a six? You would think that a six would come up at least once every six rolls, but sometimes you can go for 10 or 20 rolls without one coming up at all.

And meanwhile when you don't need one, you get three in a row.

It's the same thing - something that's a reasonable chance (1 in 6) can happen less frequently than you expect, or it can happen much more often than you expect. That's just because events don't happen in a consistent pattern but it is much more random. That's why you can't take the scenario of one person catching COVID outside and extrapolate to say it's incredibly infectious/easy to catch, or the scenario of some household members not catching it, and say that means it's impossible to catch. It's neither - it's in the middle but these are very small samples and therefore it's not representative.

Lovely explanation from @BertieBotts.

Some people are superspreaders with covid; typically they talk loudly, shout or sing while in their most infectious stage. Other people might only infect one or two individuals, or even none at all, they simply excrete less virus at the critical times when they are near to others. It's possible too that others on your family already had covid with or without symptoms.

My dad got it and my mum didn’t. They shared a bed and sofa throughout.

Thabks Bertie and Mrex those explanations make a lot of sense.(and yes I believe I was called a nicompoops above for believing that I could catch it outdoors!)

One of the interesting emerging facts about covid19 coming out is that its spread is HIGHLY variable, more than any virus we know. If four people have flu they will each likely give it to one other person. If four have covid, three will likely give it to nobody while one will give it to three people.
Scientists don't know exactly why yet but it seems like it's not necessarily that a specific person is by nature a 'superspreader' but that there is a 'superspreading event' which happens when there's a certain combination of environment, stage of infection etc.

I have a negative antibody result too as of today! Dr google tells me false positives are very rare in that it is likely to pick up some virus even if its not at the level in the body to be infectious. So caught outisde = low viral load = not v infectious maybe?!

I'm a bit disappointed not to have antibodies though! I'm cv so liked the thought of my body making antibodies.

My friends eldest daughter came to her house for Christmas. She shared a bedroom with her younger siblings and was in the house for 2 days with 6 others. The day she left (boxing day) she became extremely unwell with covid but not one other members became unwell. Bizarre indeed.

Family of 7 here. Only I caught it before Christmas. We were all completely baffled as it was the new variant too!!!

Yes I've known more families not get it while living with a positive family member, than get it.

Our family members were the opposite . One person caught it at work ( turned out 12 out of 26 staff had it . Bought it home and then sister , father , mother and Nan ( who had only been visited for 10 mins with a mask on ) all caught it . The father still has long covid.

Also 30 percent roughly are asymptomatic so may have caught it before without realising .