Need help understanding why I got a Negative COVID test

[Jdis]

Hi everyone,

I need help understanding why i got a negative covid19 test while my gf got a positive (twice!). We  both live together, and we've been sleeping in the same bed, share food, kiss, intimacy, yet my results came back negative.

Going back couple weeks (nov 3rd thru the 5th), I think i caught the cold from my gf. She started having runny nose and coughs. I caught the cold from her around the 4th i think, started getting coughs, runny nose and mild sore throat. It hit the hardest for me on the 5th. Had terrible cough (phlegm), bad headache, but next day it was better, and on Sunday i fully recovered.

My gf had gone to a state where there was many known covid cases. She went from 6th, came back on  9th. Then started feeling COVID symptoms on the 11th. She had fatigue, loss and taste and smell, and mild coughs. She tested postive for COVID on Nov 18th. Nov 19th is when i started feeling something, mild body aches, then the 21th, i had sore throat, and a headache - That same day, i went to get tested with my gf testing again, but I came back NEGATIVE, while she retained her POSITIVE.

Today, I seem fine, my sore throat is still there, but i can feel it getting better. But im curious as to why I got a negative? Do i have low viral load? I take multivitamins, which includes D and i also take Zinc 50mg daily.

My gf is better now, she has a senses back completely as of today. We are going to get tested again tomorrow.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[Paxiled]

The above probably explains it, but one other possibility is that the test you took might have simply not given an accurate result.  Most of the tests used show false negatives.  Quick tests are the least reliable.  The most reliable, the PCR tests, still have some companies that make unreliable tests.  The cause of the latter is that in the early times of the pandemic the FDA approved pretty much everything that came before it, and a lot of those tests didn't work.  The quick tests aren't a complete test and are often wrong.  Some are wrong quite a bit.  They also don't test for the same things, which partly explains it.  So while it might indeed have been too soon to show that you are positive, or it might be your immune system was able to protect you -- clearly not everyone has the virus, right? -- it might also have been that your original test was just wrong.  It happens a lot.  I heard an interview with an ER doc and he said that at his hospital they didn't trust results until they had done 4 tests.  So you might very well be positive.  Of course, we don't know how you reacted -- at first sign of symptoms, your girlfriend should have quarantined, but we don't all do that and we don't all know it's covid.  People do still get colds and flu and allergy problems and other illnesses.  I hope you're both isolating from others no matter what the test shows to protect them.  Peace.

[Paxiled]

By the by, tests also can show false positives.  Life isn't perfect.

[supermum_ms]

We had someone test positive 11 days after being repeatedly exposed to covid by close family members, he had been in 14 day quaranteen because he was a close contact..

"The median incubation period for COVID-19 is 4.9 – 7 days, with a range of 1 – 14 days. Most people who are infected will develop symptoms within 14 days of infection.  Testing early in the incubation period before symptoms have developed may not detect infection, and a negative test result cannot be used to release individuals from quarantine prior to the outer range of the incubation period, which is 14 days.  "

https://www.health.gov.au/news/australian-health-protection-principal-committee-ahppc-coronavirus-covid-19-statements-on-14-may-2020

Hope that helps.....JJ

[AnnieBrooke]

Evidently not everyone gets Covid-19 who is exposed to it. I just read an article last week that said if people are living with someone who has Covid-19, about 40% of them might get it. From what I'm reading, it's possible for one person in a couple to get it and not the other. There is even a theory that people are more or less susceptible based on their blood type. Science does know that not everyone exposed to Covid gets it, they don't know why that is, yet.

In your shoes, I'd wait out the time period since she got sick (I think most say two weeks) and if you still aren't showing symptoms, consider yourself either lucky (this time) or simply not prone to getting it.

[Jdis]

I did get symptoms tho, i had mild body aches for one day, followed by pressured headache and sore throat, which i still have sore throat today, but it's mild now

[AnnieBrooke]

You may have caught a cold, you said she had one before she went to the place where Covid was rampant. Or, you might have gotten Covid but just tested too early. In other words, just because you had a virus doesn't mean it was "the" virus, and even if it was, it doesn't mean you tested in the right time frame for it to be caught by the test. You can get tested again, I assume, since you live with someone who has a positive diagnosis, and also you could get tested later to see if you have antibodies to Covid-19, which would also suggest that's what you had.