Is a new variant evading LFTs, or is there another nasty bug doing the rounds?

[dumbledory]

Hi all.

Just what the title says really.

Work in a school - triple jabbed and never had covid (recent antibody test).

Currently the children across the year I work in have all been coughing relentlessly for the last week or so. Some children have been so unwell, we've had to send them home only for them to be back the next day.

Assume parents are generally not testing at this point.

Started feeling unwell myself on Monday and have progressively been feeling worse. Colleagues are dropping like flies.

I fell asleep early last night, only to wake at couple of hours ago and have been coughing non-stop since...it's gotten to the point where my voice is hoarse and chest is very sore.

If it wasn't for all of the negative lateral flows I've taken (including one an hour ago) I would say this was my first go with Covid. But as it is, I'm testing negative and am at a loss with what to do with myself.

Is there a variant that's evading the lateral flows altogether or should I just accept that there are many other bugs that could be causing this and suck it up?

Feeling the pressure to go in, as it's SATs week and the school is already a few staff members down.

DD was really quite poorly last week with what I thought to be COVID. She was generally 'droopy' and very tired, with a really sore throat and a lingering headache for most of that time. Had felt ill the previous tail end of the week, ill all over the BH weekend and had two days off last week too. When she eventually did an LFT when she started feeling a bit better and was due to return to school (on day 7 - for various reasons she hadn't wanted to test earlier, although it as suggested repeatedly that she did so) she tested negative. So who knows whether it was or wasn't?

But she's about to start her GCSEs now, so really hoping she doesn't get anything else over the next five weeks.

I had covid about 6 weeks ago (pcr positive), and have currently been suffering from a sore throat/bad chesty cough for a week.

I'm not sure you can get it twice in such a short period of time and LFTs are showing negative so assume it's just a normal cold bug

Flu/bad cold? Both are stronger because of lockdowns.

@dumbledory you really shouldn't be in work if you are that unwell and on no sleep - I really hope you didn't go in!
It doesn't have to be covid to make you too ill to work. School will just have to manage.

@Cornettoninja - yes I think that might well be it. I even went for a chest x-ray as the cough was so bad and persistent a week ago but that is clear so I think it is probably just lingering in the upper tract. Seems a very different kind of virus to the original alpha / delta I think. Although quite a few people seem to go on to get bacterial pneumonia after having it.........I really think they should be rolling out another booster for everyone because it seems dangerous to just leave people without any protection in six months time, which is effectively what is going to happen I think.

I would imagine that people just aren't testing, surely? I have none left and unless someone was very unwell with a cough, we wouldn't be testing.

We had covid in mar with dc with weird head and feeling sick very slight temp for a few hrs.
We all caught it.
About 3w ago same dc had nausea vomiting and slight nosebleed.
But this time negative.
So either migraine or covid but test didnt pick it up.
The school bugs are whizzing round and now they are doing singing too so will only get worse

Not remotely true.
There was a big push for flu vaccines over the last two years and uptake has increased.
www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/adult-flu-vaccination-coverage#background

My dc was unwell the other day, high temp and sore throat. Took lft and was negative. Fine the next day. Maybe something else is going around?

We've all just had covid for the first time and it was definitely coughy. We couldn't sleep for coughing.

I’ve had a bad cold this week. Sore throat, bungee up nose, headache for a bit and a cough. Thankfully though it’s going away now on day 4. Kids have it to.

I tested as I have some left over from when my dads care home still wanted LFT. Negative but I knew it wasn’t covid, as it feels like a “normal” cold. When I had covid in Jan, it felt like something very different, it was something I had never experienced before, dh said the same thing - and my LFTs then lit up like Christmas trees all the way through so I trust them to work on me.

That’s interesting @CorsicaDreaming thanks, it’s weirdly comforting to know that your chest x-ray was clear

I’m clearly not a medic or scientist but Typhoid Mary has always fascinated me, it was found that typhoid colonised the gallbladder and she had the option to have it removed and be freed from her isolation hospital (she choose not to, can’t say I blame her given the limitations of surgery at the time!). Obviously typhoid is a bacteria not a virus but I do wonder if further research will reveal a particular ‘home’ for covid to colonise in the body. I think most observations point to the blood which isn’t the best news but it would be great if they could target a particular area to clear infections/help long covid sufferers.

My household has all been struck down with something, I'm still not right 2 weeks later. Yet all LFTs have been negative. Which is funny, as my mum (who we spend a lot of time with) has been ill at the same time as us and is firmly positive! I'm convinced we've all got the same thing (covid).

There is a horrible cough/chest infection illness going around.
My mother had it, she looked like she was on hr last legs. Coughed so hard she pulled a muscle in her back. Two different antibiotics and finally she looks better, after nearly a month.
Nurse at work had it too, As soon as I heard her coughing coming down the hall I told to call the doctors, sounded exactly like my Mum. Two weeks off, a few days where she couldn't get out of bed even, she's pretty much better now and back in work.

@Bathroom2022 - yes same here - DEFINITELY still coughy! It's a bugger of a virus.

@Cornettoninja - yes the Typhoid Mary thing is really interesting. I had not known they gave her that choice. Woah! .............. Both my mum and brother had full on exposure to covid and neither got it. My direct family got exposed, and me, DS and DH all got it one after the other. It is a weird one.

We are currently trying to solve this riddle.

DS(3) and I have both tested positive on LFTs. We both have cold symptoms. No temperature or cough. I feel like I have a heavy cold with a sinus headache.

DH has been feeling rough since Wednesday. Coughing, snotty, generally feeling unwell. DD (8) coughing and complaining of nausea. Both testing negative on LFTs.

It seems implausible that they could have an unrelated bug when there are two confirmed Covid cases in the house but I suppose it’s not impossible.

Ah, interesting that some are getting coughy versions of Covid. Everyone I know who's had it recently commented on how little they coughed, and how late into the infection - usually day 4/5.

Mine started with a cough, this was back in March but I assume still BA.2 variant. However out of 4 of us that got it only I had a cough, in fact my symptoms were so different I'd wonder if I'd had a different variant if I hadn't been sure I caught it off DS ( hadn't been anywhere else).

Bizarrely my cough did not kick in until my LFT was nearly back to zero a week after first getting infected... but it still has t gone 5 weeks later.

A different virus i assume, I have had a cough for over a week ,I felt really unwell last week ,but negative LFT,s ,ironically I have just been rereading a thread I started in September, with the same symptoms again negative LFT,s I have never tested positive for covid ,.

I've had covid five times, last time was in March but I continued to test positive for almost four weeks. A couple of weeks ago I went down with a rotten cold. I test several times a week as I'm immunosuppressed and at no point did I get a positive. To be honest, it felt different to all the covid infections I've ever had - there was no spacey head feeling and no weird symptoms (swollen white tongue, anyone?!).

It's the fourth time this year I've been ill so I'm really hoping I'm done now!

Something similar going on here for me.
Tested positive for covid 2.5 weeks ago. Had mostly scratchy throat and runny nose. Thought I'd recovered fine and tested negative on day 7. We then went on holiday (planned!). Four days later I was feeling ROUGH with the most terrible cough which kept me awake at night and I'm only now beginning to see some improvement.
I tested negative on LFTs, but I feel that it has to be related in some way!

I've currently got covid and didn't test positive on a LFT until three days after getting symptoms. Dh has just caught it from me but started feeling ropey a couple of days ago, again only just testing positive.

I caught it from my sister who was unwell but testing negative so I had a coffee with her at her house. She was the same and actually didn't test positive until she started feeling better. Reason we are testing as work for NHS so still have to.

All very very coughy by the way! In fact I have felt horrendous and never thought I would feel this rough with it, I've had two days in bed this week which is so unlike me.

DH has finally tested positive this morning but only once he did a throat swab (not easy with the stubby short swabs). Going by symptoms he’s on approx day 3/4.