Another Covid situation

[Globetrotter]

On Tuesday evening I met with two friends- while we ate outdoors, we rode in the car together without masks and sat in the car talking for a long time afterwards. Yesterday, Wednesday, she found out that her infant grandson has Covid and she was with him the entire weekend… He had a fever but is fine now. For some crazy reason, it took almost a week to get the results back (!) but he tested positive last Thursday. My friend tested negative on the rapid test this morning, and she had her second booster end of May and she had Covid itself in April. I imagine she should have strong immunity, no? Would you even consider this an exposure? I know rapid tests are notorious for being unreliable.
The other friend has a large gathering this weekend and is Wondering what to do. She signed up to volunteer at the event serving food. If she goes she will wear a kn95 mask.
I think we will both still test on Saturday evening or Sunday (My DD is coming home for the weekend) and I was planning to wear a mask when I meet my friend for a walk tomorrow, just to be extra cautious. I always mask indoors and I’ve been avoiding indoor dining recently due to the surge.

[Dayzy]

I wouldn't consider you to be exposed, especially with all of the details.

[ahisma]

These decisions are so stressful!

This is not an exposure. It's not that rapid tests are unreliable - but they are less sensitive. PCRs pick up viral loads with more sensitivity, so earlier. If your friend was negative on a rapid, it's highly unlikely that she was shedding any virus at the time you met, even if she later tests positive.

[AnnieW625]

I wouldn’t consider yourself exposed either. This virus is crazy.

One of my mom’s BFFs tested positive on Tuesday morning after meeting up with someone on Saturday night (at a party) who then tested positive on Sunday or Monday. My mom sat next to her BFF at church on Sunday (mom said BFF was masked….mom didn’t say if she was or not) and the BFF texted my mom on Tuesday and let her know she tested positive. None of us had any symptoms and we were with my mom all last week; I think my mom might have tested once and was negative (I didn’t ask and figure if she was positive she would’ve told us). We honestly thought my mom might have but nothing.


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[JustMe]

Agree to not consider it an exposure and go on with your life. That said, I would test myself with a home kit in a couple of days as you never know.

Ds and I just got over having Covid for the first time; he brought it home from the last week of school. We did not test positive for several days after our very mild symptoms that were the same as allergy symptoms (had several days of negative tests and I only tested the last day as a friend told me her similar story in which they ended up positive). Dd never got it and the day before I tested positive (and had already had symptoms for several days), in addition to the regular family/household interactions, we rode around in a car together with windows closed/no masks for quite a while.

[smilequeen]

Not an exposure. Life as “normal” (nothing is really normal yet, but…)

[Globetrotter]

Ok, thanks for the feedback. That does make sense. We know so many people who finally got it recently, but we have yet to get it.

[bisous]

I would just keep tests available and test if you feel any symptoms. It is possible to catch it through that kind of exposure but it is just as likely to catch it somewhere else. I hope you never catch it!

[echoesofspring]

I'm a bit confused about the timeline but it sounds like she was with her grandson the Fri-Sun when he still had symptoms and had been infectious the day or so before?

I know rapid tests are notorious for being unreliable.

I really like this chart from Micheal Mina (I've posted it before), that talks about exposure timelines, symptoms, when to use rapid tests, etc. It's made me feel much more comfortable trusting them, and my experience with covid (2 times now!) has aligned with the chart timelines pretty well :
https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/...24457640394756

Screen Shot 2022-06-30 at 3.37.05 PM.jpg

I think it's *possible* you were exposure - if she was exposed on Friday, by Tuesday she could have been asymptomatic and positive on when you saw her on Tuesday. But she's negative now, which seems like a great sign for all of you. I'd probably take a test on Saturday to be safe, particularly if you were doing anything social.

I'm recovering from covid atm, I play in a band and we all were unknowingly but unsurprisingly exposed last Thursday night. Four out of 5 of us tested positive Monday, we are all vaxed and boosted. One of the 4 of has been positive but asymptomatic this whole week, he wouldn't have known to test if the bandleader hadn't reached out to tell him we weren't playing this week, this is kind of what got me thinking it's possible your friend could have been pos. on Tue. I took a test as soon as I was showing symptoms (Sunday morning) and it was negative. That was what I expected based on that chart - my symptoms were due to my immune system trying to fight against the virus, but there wasn't enough of it yet for me to be contagious.

It sounds like you're probably ok - hope you managed to avoid it!

[JustMe]

For us the at-home rapid tests seem extremely accurate. Ds brought a whole bunch home the last day of school, so when he had symptoms we used a lot of them. I would say it does take several days to test positive, but once I was positive I consistently tested positive for 10 days and then went to negative.