[ssl232]

> Nose swabs reveal whether you're shedding the particles and thus infectious.

On the "shedding" point, not necessarily. The virus can be present in but contained by the immune response from the mucosae of the upper respiratory tract in such a way that it is unable to spread into the lungs and cause COVID-19, yet not shed in large enough quantities to infect others. Given time, a healthy immune system will deal with the virus in the nose and throat, often without the host even noticing. Such a situation would set off a PCR or rapid test but not present a meaningful COVID-19 infection risk to the others. (In fact, one hypothesis for why positive cases rise soon after vaccination and booster campaigns start is because of the well understood phenomenon of reduced immune response for a short time after vaccination, giving such virus already present in the upper respiratory tract at time of vaccination the edge it needs to get into the lungs.)

And the cycle thresholds on PCR tests are often set nonsensically high making them sensitive to quantities of virus and viral debris far lower than the quantity required to meaningfully infect either the host or someone else via shedding. They can also trigger positive on not just virus but viral debris for months after recovery from COVID-19 infection. (A test can be too sensitive, especially when used as the only evidence to force someone and their contacts to isolate and in some cases not earn an income for weeks.)

> It doesn't matter if you're infected if you're not shedding the virus.

I agree, but I'm not sure if the Belgian authorities, who seem to use PCR positives as a COVID-19 diagnosis, and PCR negatives as a guarantee of safety from infection risk to others, would. The article does what most articles these days do, conflating presence of SARS-CoV-2 debris on a swab with COVID-19 disease diagnosis. It incorrectly claims 2/3rds of the 25 staff have COVID-19, when given that none seem to have symptoms of the disease it's likely a case of oversensitive tests. Let's not also forget that these tests are mostly (at least all the ones I've seen) called COVID-19 tests.

[chana_masala]

> Given time, a healthy immune system will deal with the virus in the nose and throat, often without the host even noticing.

Ah ok, so that might explain why there's a significant number of people who say that they had covid without difficulty, at least of they didn't test false positive.

Thanks for explaining the nuance - I've heard a lot of this before but it's refreshing how succinctly you captured it.