For the first time since Monday, I awoke without a fever. 98.6 this morning after 4 days of a low grade, 99.9-100.1 reading each morning. The body aches and crippling fatigue vanished as if someone flicked a switch yesterday around 2:00 PM. It was so sudden I was actually surprised when I bent down to get the dog leash from the cabinet and didn’t get the usual lightheadedness and mild throbbing in the back of my skull. I almost danced a merry jig until I remembered COVID-19 has a way of lulling one into complacency by giving a false sense of recovery, only to return with a vengeance. So I am proceeding with caution, but even I must admit that feeling good is a lot better than feeling bad. One could almost consider it all worthwhile if one could walk their dog while feeling physically fit.
The symptoms haven’t returned so far, and I got my COVID-19 test results back a few minutes ago. The results were negative, so I may have had the notorious Random 4-day Fever disease. However, as was pointed out to me by a fellow defensive pessimist, these tests frequently produce false negatives.
A study by Johns Hopkins found a pretty high frequency of false negative results, depending on what stage of the illness the test was taken. In the first 4 days after infection, a whopping 67% of the tests brought back false negatives. This made me do some quick calculations. I first started feeling the body aches and fatigue last Tuesday. The first day of fever was Sunday. I took the test on Monday. Cutting it pretty close to being in that lousy early window. But once symptoms began, 38% of the tests brought back the false negative. Even if I consider the fever the first symptom, my odds of getting an accurate result improved pretty dramatically. Shockingly, the best results came about 3 days after symptomatic and even then, 20% of results of sick people came back negative.
I’m going to operate going forward as if I’m not a COVID-19 victim, although I am excited that one of the various studies I’m participating in with my Oura Ring offered to send me an antibody kit. It’ll be very interesting to see the results of that test combined with my COVID test. While a 38% false negative is pretty awful, that does mean 62% of the tests were accurate, so as in the Hunger Games, the odds are in my favor.
Oura did gently remind me to take it easy again today as my body temperature, resting heart rate and respiratory rate were all elevated above my baseline. It’s very nice to me; always considerate of my health. I can’t think of too many people who’ve ever told me to cut myself some slack and just take it easy today.
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