COVID-19: Day 25

So… 25 days into the COVID-19 journey. Is it over yet?

Thinking negative thoughts

So here we are, 25 days from my first positive test, then paxlovid and an unfortunate rebound. The Weekend Editrix tested consistently negative (including PCR at a professional lab!) but felt lousy, and was eventually declared positive by her doctor. We’re both past paxlovid, and recovering.

But are we negative?

Behold the tests on the right. The top one is the Weekend Editrix, and the bottom one is the Weekend Editor. Both are negative. In her case, we’re not sure what that means since she’s more or less always negative despite being actually positive. But in my case, we’re pretty sure it means I’m negative.

In fact, last December we worked through the Bayesian math: in possession of a single negative test each, we’re now 89.4% sure that we’re both COVID-19 negative.

The Weekend Conclusion

So yeah, it’s more or less over.

Only “more or less”, since we’re both still mildly symptomatic (productive coughs, weak as kittens, and absolutely falling-down tired & crabby by mid-afternoon). That will apparently take several more weeks to clear. But it looks like we’re at the end of it, providing COVID-19 has not left any long-term damage.

Still makes me mad as hell at the MBTA’s incompetently slow shuttle bus and the huge crowd of shouty, unmasked young folk who crammed into that slow, unventilated rattletrap with me for an hour. That cost me almost a month of my life, in recovering from the damage. Also, nearly that long a slice out of my spouse’s life. And it means I have an even shorter fuse for people who won’t mask in public.

But then, this is the blog of a grumpy old retired scientist, after all.

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Notes & References

1:Nope.