people who have covid & really don't know it.....

[PetuniaClark]

All the people I know who have had covid knew they had it because they had symptoms &/or felt unwell either mildly or severely.

But I don't know anyone who has been positive & had absolutely no idea. So Im wondering if it is as common as the adverts would have us believe?
Apologies if this question has already been answered somewhere!

I must admit, until Covid it never really occurred to me that you could be ill but asymptomatic. I always assumed that in like 99.9% of the time of you had a virus or something you would have symptoms.

Of course I know the story of Typhoid Mary but always assumed that was incredibly rare. Especially since she is really the only example of an asymptomatic carrier that I can think of.

I must admit, I now have started to wonder about thinks like norovirus. The amount of times we have had a stomach bug rip through our house, and only one of us has ‘escaped’ and shown no symptoms. So that person has carried on as normal. Makes me wonder what else we have been spreading without realising.

I guess with most things, like norovirus it would be considered ‘not a big deal’. Still, it makes you think.

My grandfather (in his 90s) tested positive when in hospital for something unrelated. No symptoms other than slight loss/change in taste. He just thought the hospital food was a bit shit 😂 DP also caught it. Asymptomatic but developed severe (shockingly severe) long covid.

My son also got it and had a mild stuffy nose for about an hour, and had one very brief temp spike in the night that I only noticed because I was awake and felt the heat off him, which was what prompted me to take him for a test the next day. Had he been in his own bed he'd have slept through it and we'd have been none the wiser.

I know 2 friends who had a positive test and had no symptoms whatsoever. They were tested through work.

@NotBot

I suspect most people are not completely asymptomatic but as humans, we are very used to not feeling 100% all the time. Today for good example, I’m feeling really tired, scratchy throat & mild headache. It’s a combination of heyfever & young kids. But I wouldn’t say I was ill or even under the weather. Just not 100%. In theory, it could be covid I suppose but I’d never think anything of it.

I had covid last year, I’ve had worse colds & I’d have happily been in work and carrying on as normal if we were in non pandemic times. I just felt knackered, had a minor cough, sore chest, headachy.

Agree with this. I suspect many had low level symptoms they didn’t recognise as they were very mild or transient. I felt a bit tired/achy one day then a week later found it hard to walk uphill. Lots wouldn’t have recognised those symptoms. DH would tell you he had no symptoms, forgetting that he had a mild fever. Lots of people are busy or always getting mild things, so just shrug it off. Or don’t recognise the symptom they had as we were all told at the start the symptoms to look out for were a cough or fever.

@MonsterMash2210

I must admit, until Covid it never really occurred to me that you could be ill but asymptomatic. I always assumed that in like 99.9% of the time of you had a virus or something you would have symptoms.

Of course I know the story of Typhoid Mary but always assumed that was incredibly rare. Especially since she is really the only example of an asymptomatic carrier that I can think of.

I must admit, I now have started to wonder about thinks like norovirus. The amount of times we have had a stomach bug rip through our house, and only one of us has ‘escaped’ and shown no symptoms. So that person has carried on as normal. Makes me wonder what else we have been spreading without realising.

I guess with most things, like norovirus it would be considered ‘not a big deal’. Still, it makes you think.

Yes I agree. I worked in a care home and we often have stomach bugs going around etc. Nearly every time we have an outbreak I am fine, however every time, someone in the family dh or one of dc get a bug too. I must be asymptomatic and carrying it to them.

My brother had it at uni. His Uni were testing contacts of students who tested positive, so when his friend tested positive he got tested and his came back positive too. Never had any symptoms.

I'm still wondering if I had it around February time. My sense of smell is still weird (some things I used to like smell/taste horrible, my house had a weird smell only I could smell for a while), but by the time I noticed my sense of smell was off, it had actually been like that for several weeks, when I thought back, so there was no point getting a test.

I used to wonder whether it was possible to get an antibody test to be sure, but now I've had my first vaccine there's no point.

I know a lot of people who have had COVID and no symptoms at all, all younger people tested because it was routine for work/education.

I also know a few people who had no symptoms at the point of testing positive but developed coughs/ loss of smell a few days later.

I know lots who had it with no symptoms

I know a reasonable number of people who were only detected by routine testing and who had no symptoms. My morbidly obese uncle tested positive but only had an extremely mild cough for a couple of days, no other symptoms. My aunt, his wife, tested positive but had no symptoms.

Both DH and I work in industries where we’ve had to test frequently throughout the pandemic.
Numerous colleagues have tested positive out of the blue with no symptoms at all.

I know someone who had a sore back. None of the classic symptoms. Dr suggested a test, my friend thought that was nuts, but turns out she was positive.

My ex (children's dad) tested because he was a contact. He had no symptoms and was positive although he did get few mild cold symptoms after test.

My husband is tested routinely for work and came back positive no symptoms at all. Unlikely to be a false positive as PCR test and several others in his workplace also tested positive around the same time. I think it is published daily the numbers of people who are tested who have symptoms vs the numbers testing for other reasons. Not sure if they include whether that was positive or negative but you may find the information there. I think it is around 80 per cent that are asymptomatic

I've always joked that my 10 year old is a carrier of illnesses. Never got ill himself, if bugs are going around his class he'd always fine but guaranteed one of us still gets it. Same if we were ill, he's be fine.

He's the only one of us (that we know) who's had covid though. Headache and then loss of taste/smell for a couple of days. Since then he seems to have cayght everything going round

If you had Covid asymptomatically, did you have an unusually strong reaction to the vaccine?

I vomited nearly 12 hours straight and was nauseous and on/off sick for weeks after mine (I’m fine now!) I have 2 nurses and 1 doctor in my friendship group and they’re all convinced I must have had covid previously and not realised.

@NotBot

I suspect most people are not completely asymptomatic but as humans, we are very used to not feeling 100% all the time. Today for good example, I’m feeling really tired, scratchy throat & mild headache. It’s a combination of heyfever & young kids. But I wouldn’t say I was ill or even under the weather. Just not 100%. In theory, it could be covid I suppose but I’d never think anything of it.

I had covid last year, I’ve had worse colds & I’d have happily been in work and carrying on as normal if we were in non pandemic times. I just felt knackered, had a minor cough, sore chest, headachy.

I think this is true and honestly it’s why I’ve found the last year so confusing with when to isolate and when to test. I feel like I have a mild cold or scratchy throat about 80% of the time, even through lockdowns. I have young children who pick up everything and I don’t think I had constant mild colds prior to DC though it’s hard to remember now. DH is/was a key worker so I assume he bought random colds back through the lockdowns, although for whatever reason he rarely develops colds himself unlike me. Did family PCR tests a month a go because I felt like my oldest DC was coughing too much for school (it’s primary so they all seem to have low level coughs pretty much permanently which staff don’t seem bothered about) - negative. Colds dragged on for most of the family and mostly got better but this week coughing started again for all of us, much stronger so another round of PCR tests (again negative). I assume it’s a new cold and it just tagged on to the end of the last cold? So hard to know... but isn’t this life with young DC for a lot of us? So hard to say when symptoms start and stop and what is a “new” cough and what isn’t.

I do the ZOE app and I do pass off mild scratchy throat as feeling physically fine which I’m not sure is right or not.

@PetuniaClark

All the people I know who have had covid knew they had it because they had symptoms &/or felt unwell either mildly or severely.

But I don't know anyone who has been positive & had absolutely no idea. So Im wondering if it is as common as the adverts would have us believe?
Apologies if this question has already been answered somewhere!

Don't confuse two separate things.

There's people who never know they're infected. Can't remember the estimated %'s but it wasn't that high - ~10%

Then there's everyone else, who are infectious before they have symptoms. The typical time for symptoms to show is 4-5 days. The primary infectious window is 2-10 days. See the problem?!

It's why this pandemic has proved so difficult to stop. The virus is primarily carried around by people with no idea they're infected so even if EVERYONE isolated the moment they had symptoms, it would be no good. Contrast with SARS-1 where infectiousness prior to symptoms was uncommon - made it easy to stop.

NB When people take a test before symptoms show and are given a +ve, they are referred to as asymptomatic - that doesn't mean they will never show symptoms.

A few people I know tested positive through LFT and then confirmed by PCR and didn’t have any symptoms

A friend of my Mum took part in the antibody testing programme last year and tested positive for antibodies. She was really, really unwell (and was hospitalised) with a virus very much like COVID just before Christmas 2019 but hasn’t been unwell at all since. We’re told that Christmas 2019 was too early for it to have been COVID, so she must have had it asymptomatically

@woodfort I can relate to this so much.

I have felt like I have constantly got a cold coming on since winter 2019. Never been aware of this feeling until Covid started being featured on the news.

I have no idea if this is how I always feel or it’s psychological because of Covid. I have had negative tests and an negative antibody test so it’s never been (as far as I am aware) Covid.

My son also ALWAYS gets a cough every single winter. He always has ever since he was a baby. Before Covid every HCP I have ever spoke to just told me he is a child, they are full of germs, it’s perfectly normal.

However, last winter of course it’s a problem because it could be Covid. Somehow he managed to get through the winter with only having to give him 2 Covid tests (3 tests in total, all negative). I was convinced we would be testing every week!

I have spent so much time since Covid starting wondering if we should get getting tests or not. It’s just so mentally draining.

Just this morning my husband coughed once. Just a single cough. No cough before and no cough since, he is otherwise perfectly fine. My mind still went on red alert trying to work out the logistics of getting a test and isolating, in case this was the start of a persistent cough or he started feeling ill.

The same the other day when my son starting saying he didn’t feel well. It must have been the heat as he felt better when he sat down and had a cold drink. Still, just in case it progressed into something more my mind went into overdrive.

I can’t wait for the day someone coughs or doesn’t feel well and I don’t instantly wonder if we will need and test/ isolate. I just want to be able to fully relax again.

[quote MonsterMash2210]@woodfort I can relate to this so much.

I have felt like I have constantly got a cold coming on since winter 2019. Never been aware of this feeling until Covid started being featured on the news.

I have no idea if this is how I always feel or it’s psychological because of Covid. I have had negative tests and an negative antibody test so it’s never been (as far as I am aware) Covid.

My son also ALWAYS gets a cough every single winter. He always has ever since he was a baby. Before Covid every HCP I have ever spoke to just told me he is a child, they are full of germs, it’s perfectly normal.

However, last winter of course it’s a problem because it could be Covid. Somehow he managed to get through the winter with only having to give him 2 Covid tests (3 tests in total, all negative). I was convinced we would be testing every week!

I have spent so much time since Covid starting wondering if we should get getting tests or not. It’s just so mentally draining.

Just this morning my husband coughed once. Just a single cough. No cough before and no cough since, he is otherwise perfectly fine. My mind still went on red alert trying to work out the logistics of getting a test and isolating, in case this was the start of a persistent cough or he started feeling ill.

The same the other day when my son starting saying he didn’t feel well. It must have been the heat as he felt better when he sat down and had a cold drink. Still, just in case it progressed into something more my mind went into overdrive.

I can’t wait for the day someone coughs or doesn’t feel well and I don’t instantly wonder if we will need and test/ isolate. I just want to be able to fully relax again.[/quote]
Yup - I relate to this too.

I have had non-allergic rhinitis since a child, and it DOES go through changes periodically in how it affects me. Mostly the last few years I've been symptom free, but THIS year I've suddenly started getting sore throats and post-nasal drip of mucus and the feeling of a cold "coming on". Got a PCR test the first time it happened as I was staying with my 80 yr old mum so panicked a bit, but -ve.

It keeps hitting me at the gym when I start a cardio workout and I have to cough to clear my throat and I feel so self-concious!

I had it in January. I would never have known other than the loss of taste/smell which lasted 48 hours. Other than that I had the snuffles for a day or two. Nobody else in the house caught it, and I was in work before the loss of taste/smell and nobody at work caught it.

Yes, a friend who is tested at work.

@TheSockMonster

If you had Covid asymptomatically, did you have an unusually strong reaction to the vaccine?

I vomited nearly 12 hours straight and was nauseous and on/off sick for weeks after mine (I’m fine now!) I have 2 nurses and 1 doctor in my friendship group and they’re all convinced I must have had covid previously and not realised.

No, I've had two doses of Pfizer and had a sore arm but no other symptoms both times.

My niece was on FaceTime with her friend and they were messing around doing LfT, hers came back positive so she got a normal one and it came back positive, the only symptom she had was itchy eyes and a runny nose which she thought was hayfever