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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

I really wish we had widespread testing, or even a test to see if you had COVID-19 in the past. Before we had all been so focused on this thing, my child's friend came back from China in December, and she had a upper respiratory illness with a fever. Then my whole family and I suffered under a low-grade fever and upper respiratory illness for a week or so in early January. I have no idea if it was COVID-19, but it is hard not to wonder.

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That's fear talking. Why would you want to be tested? What would you do differently? You had a virus, now you aren't sick any longer. You aren't making other people sick, either.

Well, for one thing, if people can be tested to confirm they had and recovered from the virus and therefore have some immunity to it, those people can more safely assist people who are currently ill and move about more freely in society (unless they are still at risk to transmit the virus to others, of course).

You cannot assume that recovering from the virus confers immunity, especially when "the virus" is already "two strains of virus" (and will almost definitely end up mutating more before this is over).

FWIW the 'two strains' theory was debunked.

It certainly confers immunity for a short period of time. How long that immunity lasts for is unknown, but it’s not unreasonable to start with an assumption of “at least a few months”.

There’s also not strong evidence that there are two sufficiently different strains. Viruses experience small, mostly meaningless, mutations with great frequency. The research talking about S and L types are actually just an arbitrary categorization of many different mutations of the virus.

The first confirmed case of community contracted COVID-19 in the United States occurred in MY community, and was treated at MY place of work. So, no it is not entirely fear talking.

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