Covid risk after negative test

July 1, 2022 7:35 AM

Housemate had covid last week. Is testing negative this week but still has symptoms. Risk for me?

My housemate tested positive June 20. We isolated in our rooms and masked in common areas. I tested negative on 3 tests leading up to me being out of town June 26-last night (June 30). I’m currently testing negative.

Since June 26, my housemate has tested negative on antigen tests 3 times, but she’s still experiencing symptoms (heavy persistent cough).

Not sure of the risk level for me? I’m not hugely concerned for my own health if I get it, but I have some plans coming up that I’d really like to not have to skip. Isolating in my room is becoming increasingly challenging (I don’t really have space in my room for anything other than my bed so eating and working in bed really isn’t ideal for me) and I don’t have the resources to stay elsewhere.

We’re both triple vaxxed. This is her 3rd round of covid, I don’t think I’ve ever had it, but who knows (I’m in an industry where I have to test relatively often, but there were a couple months earlier this year where I didn’t need to test so I guess it’s possible).

Not sure of risk level? Am I okay if she walks by to go to the bathroom and I’m on the couch? We aren’t in the room together for longer than a minute at a time.

posted by greta simone to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

If you have a positive PCR, testing isn't really reliable for the next 90 days. Once 10 days out from symptom onset and 24 hours fever free is where I would stop worrying.
posted by cmm at 7:41 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's been 10 days since her first positive test and she is resting negative on a rapid test? She is likely not contagious. A lingering heavy cough is a common post viral symptom for many people, I get it after pretty much every respiratory virus. It can develop into bronchitis or pneumonia but it shouldn't be contagious.
posted by muddgirl at 7:42 AM on July 1, 2022 [7 favorites]

The continued heavy cough is concerning, but not surprising - I've heard for some people it can last for some weeks. Your poor roommate!

I'm assuming she's taking these tests some amount of time (like, a day or two?) apart. If she has three serial negatives, that is a good sign. If I were you and I had an event coming up, I would probably mask if your roommate and I were going to be in the same room for more than incidental contact, but otherwise would feel okay being in my house as normal. She's 11 days out with serial negatives, which is pretty far out for infectious virus shedding. Many people would say you're fine to continue out as normal - that may end up fine, but I am more cautious.
posted by quadrilaterals at 7:42 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You're probably okay at this point - the cough could stick around for weeks or months and isn't what you should base your decision on. That said, especially knowing that rebound cases are a thing and she could test positive again in another day or two, in your shoes I'd consider continuing to be at least somewhat cautious for a bit longer if the upcoming plans are very important. (Depending what the plans are, if it's feasible to talk to the other people who will be there, I would also ask them about their comfort level and what sort of precautions you need to be taking now to make them comfortable spending time with you next week or whenever the plans are.)
posted by Stacey at 7:52 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I am fairly cautious about COVID and I would feel comfortable behaving normally in this situation. Congratulations to you both for avoiding in house transmission! It is doable with effort.

Rapid antigen tests are an excellent proxy for infectious levels of virus. They aren’t sensitive to levels of virus as low as what PCR catches, but for public health purposes, and your purposes as a housemate, sensitivity versus infectiousness is much, much more important than sensitivity versus any virus present. In fact, that long observed nostrum that “testing doesn’t work after an infection” applies ONLY to PCR, precisely because it detects levels of virus we don’t care about.

One caveat to this is that if your roommate took Paxlovid, you might ask them to retest with an antigen test if symptoms worsen again — because there are tons of anecdotal reports of a “Paxlovid rebound” (Tony Fauci had one this week or last, I hear). But I’m guessing that’s not in play here.
posted by eirias at 8:01 AM on July 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Husband had covid weeks ago and still has a very bad cough. He's back at work seeing patients and has been since however many days post-positive test is the current guideline.
posted by gaspode at 10:07 AM on July 1, 2022

Anecdote time: I recently had Covid, and initially thought I had a cold, as I was coughing but testing negative on rapid tests (PCR tests aren't available here any more except for hospital patients). I went to a couple of indoor events while coughing and testing negative, am in touch with most people who were there, and none of them caught it from me.

Then I tested positive, isolated, and was testing negative again within a few days. I had to attend a similar event shortly afterwards, and everyone there was fully informed of my status. Once again, none of them caught Covid from me.

This would seem to support what's mentioned above, that testing negative on a rapid test is a very good sign that you're not going to infect people.
posted by altolinguistic at 11:50 AM on July 1, 2022

Others have covered the ins and outs of the testing. I'd like to address a different aspect: the coughing. I strongly recommend that your housemate cough into their elbow/shoulder every time (the "vampire" cough/sneeze). Sneezing and coughing are pretty much tailor-made for spreading whatever tiny bits of viral particles might still be around.
posted by acridrabbit at 12:51 PM on July 1, 2022

Your roommate is probably less likely to infect you than any other random person, given the high prevalence currently and the three negative RATs in a row. If you were otherwise being quite cautious (e.g. always masking indoors, no eating out, no crowded spaces), it might possibly make sense to take more precautions, but if that's not the case, it probably doesn't make sense to worry about this.
posted by ssg at 2:38 PM on July 1, 2022

There was a recent study in the NEJM that suggests 25% of people are still shedding the virus 10 days after the onset of symptoms or a positive PCR test. Most are no longer contagious after 15 days. It’s a little more complicated than that but I think that’s the simple takeaway. N of only 66, so keep that in mind too. Here’s the study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2202092
posted by mikeand1 at 6:27 PM on July 1, 2022