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Comment by AlexanderNull | Hacker News Reader

Great write up on the nature of fear! It's amazing how much the mind can fight to deny the reality of the situation you're in during such episodes.

The dull chest pain sticks around for a surprisingly long amount of time. I'm at day 25 now since my ER visit and just noticed that I haven't felt any of that dull pressure in at least 2 or 3 days at this point.

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> The dull chest pain sticks around for a surprisingly long amount of time.

I also had tightness in my upper chest. It lasted a week, from 10-18 March. During that time, it didn't get better or worse. But it lasted long enough that I started planning for a future A&E visit...

Then all of a sudden, thankfully, the chest tightness was gone. Occasional dry coughs continued for two more weeks.

I have had asthma and bronchitis my whole life. So I am always very aware of the state of my lungs. This tightness and dry cough is different from anything I ever had before.

What exactly is this dull chest pain? I've had symptoms of lower chest and back-pain more than a month ago, with a strange feeling of not being able to get sufficient air through my nose as well as seemingly high blood-pressure and heart racing in late afternoons. This all lasted just short of a week, but took a couple of weeks in total until I could say it was gone, with a persistent minor dry cough. No idea if it was Covid but the symptoms sound strangely familiar with what other people experience elsewhere in my community. Could be panic attacks as well, obviously, but it felt strange.

I experienced the same. I even did gym at home with good performance but i felt weird sensation on my chest. I don't want to think i had covid, but so many people had it that I am surprised i don't.

This is availability bias. Because you hear it in the news so much, whenever you have some weird pain in the body, the bias make you think "covid-19".

I'm not saying you don't have it, but I'm saying your mind is making it seem much more likely than it actually is.

Fact is, that when I know when something feels unusual. And when this happened, I had no idea what the Covid symptoms are like. And at the time, I also didn't think that it was this. Only after several people in my community reported the same "symptoms" did I become suspicious.

And hence, the availability bias.

Mostly sure!

while it could be covid19, if you didn't have any fever or anything, it's probably more likely to be a mild panic attack. I'm saying this because I had something similar but then was tested negative.

of course, I'm not a doctor, and it could also be covid19.

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