Me and Covid

My country has strict laws that are enforced by an extremely effective police force that is among the least corruptible in the world. As a result, we haven't suffered much from the pandemic. We only read in the newspapers about its terrible deadly effects in other countries. I know of no one who has suffered any serious illness from Covid. I was totally unprepared when I flew to a nearby country last month and was told a few days after that I had tested positive for Covid. 

My travel companion had been ill for the past few days and he tested negative. I had no symptoms at all and felt on top of the world. But I was slapped with a 7-day quarantine in my hotel. We both suspected that our results had been inadvertently switched. The next day, we got the hotel to do another test. This time, I was told that I was negative and my companion positive. 

But on the record, I was still considered a recovered positive case. Perhaps they are right. I could have been a symptomless positive case.  But is that likely? The pre-departure PCR test and the arrival PCR test done within the last 3 days of my positive result showed that I was negative. 

But what is really puzzling is I didn't catch the bug from my travel companion who is a close family member. We were together throughout his illness and before. I expected to have caught the bug from him but although I tested myself regularly, I was negative all the time. 

When we were both out of quarantine, we flew back home. About two weeks later, an even closer family member fell ill. I continued to eat with her and spent time with her, thinking she only had a common flu. One morning she took the test and it was positive. Again, I expected to contract the disease in the next few days. But my tests remained negative. 

There are no antivaxxers in my family and we are all vaccinated and boosted. Of course the two family members who contracted Covid recovered without incident. Their illness was no worse than a common cold. In fact, it was less severe than a common cold. There are four of us in the family. 2 caught Covid and 2 didn't. Now, what I am going to say next is purely anecdotal and must not be taken as evidence of vaccine efficacy. We were all vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer. What's different is our booster jab. The ones who didn't catch Covid at all were boosted with Moderna. The other two had a third dose of Pfizer. I'm sure it's wrong to draw any conclusion from such skimpy facts and with such a small sample size too. But all the same, if a second booster is approved in my country, guess what vaccine I'll opt for?

Here's a pic of me on the last day of quarantine in the hotel.

17 February 2022