Due to a roommate, can COVID's viral load stay high enough after day 10 to infect others?

post by catears123 (briana-berger) · 2022-01-21T07:08:02.797Z · LW · GW · No comments

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    1 Maxwell Peterson
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I got Omicron - I completely isolated from my roommate for three days. She ends up testing positive due to initial exposure before I tested positive. Since we both got COVID, we decided to isolate together. Currently, I'm on day 7. She is on day 4. Day 10 is when we are allowed to leave isolation at our school. 

Our friends are saying that: my roommate and I should stop hanging out when I'm able to leave isolation because I'd be spending time with an infected person, so I would have viral load without being infected. This viral load could still infect someone else. 

What is the research on this with omicron, COVID-19, etc? What are your thoughts on this?

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answer by Maxwell Peterson · 2022-01-21T14:20:01.330Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I haven’t looked into it, but it’s my impression that high viral loads come from virus replicating in your body, when you don’t yet have immunity. Once you have B-cell immunity from prior infection, virus has a much harder time replicating in your body, and you don’t get the high loads.

Like… if you’re expelling some viral particles with every breath, and the only viral particles you have are from your roommate, and you’re immune… then it shouldn’t take long to go through the particles you breathed in from the roommate, if there’s no internal replication going on in your body to generate new ones.

Hopefully someone else can give a better researched answer though!

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