Can anyone reassure us or are we alone?

[1nvest]

Family unit : Dad (me, 60), with two Covid returned-home sons in their mid 20's.

I had both Oxford jabs some months back. Eldest son had his second Pfizer jab a couple of weeks back. Youngest hasn't had any jabs.

Following 'opening up' they both went nightclubbing and around a week ago the youngest started a cold/cough. When my eldest had his second jab they gave him a batch of PCR tests and a test of the youngest revealed two bold red lines pretty much instantly (the other two of us both tested negative). He's continued with the cough/cold like symptoms and indoor life has remained pretty much the same as usual, in the same living room watching TV with us two, we haven't been specifically cleaning or separating any more than usual ...etc and now around a week later we've just done another three tests and we're both still clear whilst his red line is very very faint. Cold wise he's still chesty, but otherwise feels 'fine', no more/less different to any prior regular cold/cough.

His 89 year old grandma contracted Covid back in February around four days after being admitted to hospital for a hip op (and around a week after receiving her first Pfizer jab) and despite great fear/scare, nothing came of it. She didn't really even have any snivels and no cough.

As a possible reassurance it looks like both vaccines work even when you're indoors and in close/regular contact with someone with a heavy red line positive PCR test. And that even if contraction occurs without any vaccine having been received the symptoms can be mild. On the downside with around 30,000 daily positives being reported, 700 daily hospital admissions and 70 daily deaths ... type figures, there's around a 2.5% chance of some not doing well following contraction, and a 0.25% chance of death.

Covid originally was frightening for me, at first I was even disinfecting packages upon returning home from the shops etc. but given family circumstances events over the last 7 months I now feel a lot more relaxed. I guess sooner or later everyone will contract it, its not going to go away, and until after known exposure/contraction will only then the downside risk to a small number or relief of being outside of that group be individually known and for most fear alleviated.

[Hallucigenia]

it looks like both vaccines work even when you're indoors and in close/regular contact with someone with a heavy red line positive PCR test. And that even if contraction occurs without any vaccine having been received the symptoms can be mild. On the downside with around 30,000 daily positives being reported, 700 daily hospital admissions and 70 daily deaths ... type figures, there's around a 2.5% chance of some not doing well following contraction, and a 0.25% chance of death.

Part of it is that vaccines work.

But part of it is that (pre-delta at least) even without vaccines SARS2 infection is incredibly, weirdly, "lumpy" by the standards of most viruses. With the original variants, about 70% of infections like your son didn't infect anybody else and most of the rest only infected 1-2 people. But <10% of infections are "superspreaders" that infect many other people, enough to have a big effect on overall transmission. It seems to be a combination of opportunity - eg the person goes to choir practice or other crowded event with lots of vocalisation, behaviour - eg a smoker who naturally coughs a lot, and differences in virus biology - some people end up with a lot more virus in their system than others, and/or have it in different parts of their lungs etc and that seems to make a big difference.

It seems the beta (Kent) and delta variants have increased transmissibility by bumping more people into the more infectious categories, partly by higher viral load but apparently there seems to be more to it than that, they're still trying to figure it out - fascinating from a biological point of view but not good from a public health perspective.

Also I wouldn't judge the threat by the death rate - like polio the impact will probably come mostly from the effect of long Covid, which affects 10-20% of infectees, maybe up to 30%. I've had a mild case of long Covid, and even that's not fun.

[pje16]

it looks like both vaccines work even when you're indoors and in close/regular contact with someone with a heavy red line positive PCR test.

It could also be that you are asymptomatic
depending on where you read about that, somewhere between 20 and 33% of people are

[swill453]

Family unit : Dad (me, 60), with two Covid returned-home sons in their mid 20's.

I had both Oxford jabs some months back. Eldest son had his second Pfizer jab a couple of weeks back. Youngest hasn't had any jabs.

Following 'opening up' they both went nightclubbing and around a week ago the youngest started a cold/cough. When my eldest had his second jab they gave him a batch of PCR tests and a test of the youngest revealed two bold red lines pretty much instantly (the other two of us both tested negative).

I take it you mean lateral flow tests (LFT). PCR tests are the ones processed in labs.

Scott.

[Sunnypad]

it looks like both vaccines work even when you're indoors and in close/regular contact with someone with a heavy red line positive PCR test.

It could also be that you are asymptomatic
depending on where you read about that, somewhere between 20 and 33% of people are

Surely no symptoms + negative test = not a carrier?

[pje16]

could well be true but
not sure, as I'm neither a doctor nor a scientist
methinks we have a lot on here who are though