Viral load within households-last to catch it gets it worse?

[Remoanercorona]

Anecdotally I know a lot of families where the second child to catch chicken pox gets a much worse dose-I guess though repeated exposure to the virus within the household rather than a one off at playgroup or whatever.

I just wondered if, equally anecdotally, this was true for covid.

It certainly seems that way at the moment here as dd is the 3rd one to get it and seems to have worse symptoms than ds or me who had it last week. Still nothing dreadful but she’s wiped out and very snotty whereas we were mostly fine.

Just interested in other people’s experiences

You are asking for anecdotes. This isn't a thing and I've never heard of it.

The chicken pox thing is very much a thing, anecdotally - I’ve heard that attributed to viral load certainly. It was definitely true in mine and my siblings’ case - though of course anecdote is not data

I guess it’s possible it could be the same for Covid. There was definitely some speculation on viral load levels in affected healthcare wishes last year. I don’t know if there’s any consensus on that as so many different factors would be in play that it would be really hard to tell.

I just wondered if it might go some way to explaining why some people get it worse than others because a lot of the time that seems so random!

I was the last to get it in our house. And had it the mildest - wouldn't even have known I had it if I'd not been doing daily LFTs.

It wasn’t true in our house - in fact the opposite happened. I was first and the worst, dd2 had a mild cough and temperature and dh just had the temperature and fatigue. Dd1 never developed any symptoms so we don’t even know if she had it (this was last year before contacts got routinely tested)

Your particular immune system and how well it’s generated antibodies is probably more of a factor.

But we don’t yet know. Some people might be genetically more susceptible. I’ve read a suggestion that children are less badly affected because they produce less of the receptions in the lungs that the spike protein binds to than adults do - not sure if that’s true. But there are all sorts of things that may be going on at the cellular level that we just don’t know about yet. Like - there’s recently evidence that susceptibility to norivirus is partly affected by blood type antigens. Who knows what future research will uncover about Covid!

*receptors

In my experience of my household (haven't had COVID so talking about other bugs etc that have swept the family). It has been the same two that always seem to get things more severely and two that always seem to get things more severely, regardless of order of infection.

From my personal family data I would therefore conclude that individual immune system has proved more significant.

Obviously this observation means nothing outside of our own family.

*Two severely and two mildly that should have said

In my house I got it first and worse, those that got it last were asymptomatic

Not in my experience, such as it is. We found adults got it worse, kids more mildly regardless of the order of transmission.

Just to say, I love your username @Doublechins. Very jealous not to get that one!

(Am serious - my chin(s) are my constant faithful companions 🤣)

No opposite in this house. First to get it was hospitalised. I was next, ill but fairly mild. Third was teen dd poorly but quickly recovered. Last was my youngest barely any symptoms.