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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of September 19
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
My husband and I were waylaid this weekend by colds that were surprisingly strong. We genuinely thought they were COVID, but we’ve both tested multiple times across multiple days and they’ve all come up negative. I spent last weekend in bed recovering from my booster, and I spent this weekend doing the same because of the cold, feeling completely and utterly bleh.
I suspect the cold hit me hard because I haven’t had one in literally years. Wearing masks for the past two school years has done wonders for cutting down on the illnesses I get from
germ factoriesstudents. Each school year I tend to get one major illness and a couple of minor ones from the stuff that’s making the rounds, but the past two years I haven’t had to deal with anything outside of my usual allergies and anxiety.Part of me wants to just stay in a mask for the rest of my career, but the other part of me thinks the regular exposure is good for building and maintaining immunities. I think that’s why this cold hit so hard — either that or I’m projecting way too much meaning onto an illness that was going to be strong regardless.
I am not looking forward to my next cold because of this. I have literally not been sick at all since 2019. With COVID boosters becoming regular and the continued winding down of COVID mitigation practices as hospitalizations remain low, I anticipate my continued return to social activities this year will result in me getting my regular winter cold in the coming months.
For what it's worth. the new boosters are multivalent, targeting spike proteins from the ancestral strain, Omicron B.A4, and Omicron B.A5 (the current dominant variant). I'm not surprised that your illness only two weeks after getting boosted was something else.
Update:
Pretty much the entire school has a cold right now. It’s honestly kind of impressive.
I went from not getting covid for nearly 2.5 years to having it twice in 2 months...
I got hit pretty hard with it last week. Ended up missing work everyday except Monday, high fever, headaches, congestion, and I still have a lingering cough. I can’t imagine what this would have been like without getting vaccinated and booster’d last year. Looking forward to getting that second booster!