
Ask HN: Have you had the Corona virus? - jacquesm
The title says it all, did anybody here contract the virus (and was confirmed)? If so, what was that like? Secondary, do you know people that have had the virus? What was the outcome, how did it impact them?
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nostromo
Here are a few first hand accounts:

[https://www.nbcnews.com/video/coronavirus-patient-from-
diamo...](https://www.nbcnews.com/video/coronavirus-patient-from-diamond-
princess-explains-what-the-illness-feels-like-80075845933) (video)

[https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-
opinions/2020/03/01/i-...](https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-
opinions/2020/03/01/i-have-the-coronavirus-so-far-it-isnt-that-bad/)

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/don-t-panic-says-us-
woman-...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/don-t-panic-says-us-woman-who-
recovered-from-coronavirus/ar-BB114R0C?ocid=msedgntp)

All three of these cases were very mild, didn't require hospitalization, and
the people made a full recovery in a few days without any treatments.

------
eggy
I had a 100 to 104.5 F fevers, chills, sore throat and upper respiratory track
infection over the course of 4 days with symptoms persisting for over two
weeks back in the last part of January. I was tested for flu and strep, and
they came back negative. My wife had similar, slightly less severe symptoms.
My four year old daughter had the same symptoms as me that developed into
pneumonia. Her fevers were up to 102.5 to 103 F The pediatrician prescribed
antibiotics for my daugther who was already recovering. She was not tested for
flu or strep, since I already had been, or that is why I think tests were not
done on her. They were not diagnosing or looking for corona virus at the time
in New York/New Jersey. It felt worse than the flu I had had two years
earlier. I was very tired and weak as was my daughter. We are all OK now, but
I keep thinking we may have had it. We spend a lot of time in Asian markets in
NY/NJ, and there were a lot of people visiting the US from Hong Kong and China
for the upcoming Chinese New Year/post Christmas season that we talked with at
the markets in the weeks before getting sick.

~~~
dustinmoris
If coronavirus was this far spread in Jan already then there would have been
much higher positives in late Feb when people were starting to test outside
China.

To an extremely high degree it was just the annual flu.

~~~
easytiger
This is the crux of the matter. I believe this was widely spread in Jan and we
are way further ahead than assumed

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gt565k
Hard to tell, this damn Virus couldn't have exploded at a worse time. Flu
season, Pollen count is high, and Corona is around.

Is there a test to tell if you've had the virus? (i.e. you have the anti
bodies)? I think that would calm a lot of people. Still can't find an easy to
test place in the US. We are lacking with testing so much... If people could
get tested to determine if they already had it, it would help to return those
folks back to the work-force quicker.

80% of cases show mild to no symptoms, so basically I could have had it, but I
don't know cuz there's no damn test!

~~~
easytiger
> gt565k 1 day ago [-]

>Hard to tell, this damn Virus couldn't have exploded at a worse time. Flu
season, Pollen count is high, and Corona is around. Is there a test to tell if
you've had the virus? (i.e. you have the anti bodies)? I

Soon, they think.

------
borkt
I had about a week of alarming, severe back and joint pain and shortness of
breath/elevated pulse that I thought was a pulled muscle in my back just
making a bunch of stuff act up. After hearing the account of the nurse in
Colorado I now feel I may have been suffering from the Coronavirus, but now
that I feel healthy the direction is not to get tested as far as I can tell. I
guess I'll find out once a test is developed for antibodies.

------
notahacker
34 year old healthy male, non smoker and no relevant medical conditions. Not
tested [govt policy] but it's a completely unfamiliar infection of the lungs
picked up in London where it's very much present, with mild breathing-related
symptoms associated with COVID-19 and no regular flu/cold symptoms.

No proper fever [temperature may have very slightly elevated, but not
noticeably so, and sleep fitful but I've had much more pronounced fevers
before], I've coughed only a literal handful of times and not painfully, so
clearly sufficiently mild to miss those characteristic immune responses, no
headache or body ache either and only occasional feelings of fatigue and a bit
more sleep than usual. Just inflamed lungs which were more uncomfortable than
painful or restrictive, and this seems to have largely subsided exactly in
line with the reported fifth day in which Coronavirus symptoms usually start
to clear or occasionally turn for the worse.

Back when I felt completely healthy last Wednesday and went for a 3k outdoor
run (no more uncomfortable or slower than I'd have expected considering I
haven't run much this year) I obviously felt like I was breathing a bit too
shallowly and breathing deoxygenated air at the end. The infection felt like
basically that same feeling coming back the following day, except with a
normal breathing rate [and heart rate]; most noticeable when lying down. No
actual difficulties taking deeper breaths when I wanted [rapid breathing might
have been difficult], but just breathing just felt a little uncomfortable and
I can imagine how it can cause much more serious problems for people with more
severe symptoms, pre-existing lung conditions or immune system issues.

Steady from last Thursday through to Monday evening, at which point breathing
became much easier but I felt what was like surges of adrenalin which I assume
was an immune response kicking in. Made sleep difficult but feel better today
regardless.

~~~
navd
28 year old male, USA. Same exact thing with sore throat. Funny enough, I
noticed the weird breathing coming on while running a couple days before
symptoms showed as well.

------
tmaly
My wife was telling me of a post from her friend in the Philippines. A doctor
in the heart center just passed away from the virus. He was treating someone
who had the virus.

I really wish there were some clear demographic stats on people. Are they old?
young?

IMHO I think better information would help calm the panic.

------
navd
Keep in mind there are going to be a lot of instances where people are
infected but are not confirmed. I know a couple of people who were / are sick,
had C19 symptoms but were not tested because they weren’t considered high risk
enough.

------
pcvarmint
Not to my knowledge. I live 3 miles from the Life Care Center epicenter, and I
have not met anyone who has it, nor have any of my friends told me that they
have it.

------
easytiger
It's basically impossible to find confirmed cases in the UK as little to no
testing has been done. I and many others believe we had it. But it's just
speculation

~~~
Engineering-MD
Well 40,000+ tests is a significant number. It just isn’t enough for the
reality of a 65m country with a high incidence of clinically similar
infections. Hopefully with serology/antibody tests we will get a more real
answer of how many have had it.

~~~
easytiger
Yes. Agreed

------
sergiotapia
i've yet to meet a single person with it either first hand or through friends
and family. even coworkers, not one.

~~~
tasty_freeze
There are currently only 4600 or so confirmed cases in the US, so it isn't
surprising that most of us don't yet know anyone.

Real-time dashboard from Johns Hopkins:

[https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...](https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

The UI isn't entirely obvious, but you can get more detailed information by
selecting a region (left hand side), then clicking on the arrow in the footer
of that column to see the breakdown by state/region.

~~~
gt565k
Confirmed cases don't mean shit. Reporting is garbage because we don't have
enough tests available.

South Korea has been testing en-masse for over a month now and was able to get
ahead of the virus spreading, hence the low number of deaths, whereas Italy's
reporting is mostly people who already had severe symptoms, and people with
mild or no symptoms probably aren't even part of the reporting numbers.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-
kore...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/)

~~~
tasty_freeze
Sorry for the slow reply; a windows upgrade took out my pc for a day.

"Confirmed cases don't mean shit." I agree the numbers reported are probably
vastly under-reporting the actual number of cases.

But what is your point? The question was "Have you had the coronoa virus", and
the person I was responding to said, "i've yet to meet a single person with it
either first hand or through friends and family"

How does that affect my statement? Imagine this more extreme condition. Corona
virus is real, it has infected 1M people, but only one person in the world has
been tested, and the test is positive. If someone said, "I don't know anyone
who has tested positive," that is not at all surprising since they cannot
possibly know that anyone has coronavirus unless they happen to know the one
person in the world who has been tested.

