Data Is Beautiful

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Recently had my first covid infection and decided to put together a little diagram about how it went (i.imgur.com)

submitted 9 months ago by amelia@feddit.de to c/dataisbeautiful@lemmy.ml

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[–] relevants@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting & quite a cool visualization!
I am on day 7 of symptoms right now, also just got it after dodging it for almost four years. My fever has subsided but boy am I congested still. I'm just glad the massive headaches are gone, I couldn't think straight for a while.

On the other hand, I've been wearing FFP2 masks in all indoor spaces religiously and I've been planning to keep doing it until I got covid (my masks didn't fail me in the end either, I got it from a household member), and at this point I am genuinely excited to finally not be the outsider anymore and feel more normal again.

[–] amelia@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Thank you! I'm on day 16 now and even though I feel much much better, I can still feel that I'm definitely not 100% back to normal and I expect it to take a while still to get there. I think my visualization wasn't perfect in that I meant to imply that the 3 symptoms that fade to the right were much better, but still not completely gone at the end of the visualized time frame. On day 16 I'm still a bit congested, occasionally cough (but really just maybe 3-4 times a day) and also still feel a bit fatigued. From what I heard from friends and family who had it recently, a certain degree of fatigue can last for a few more weeks after the other symptoms have gone away so I'll just take it slowly and hope I'll feel normal again as soon as possible. Hope you'll feel better soon, too! Just take it slowly, give your body some rest and time to heal.

[–] stress_headache@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've never seen "1" written like that. Is it a German thing?

[–] amelia@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago

I think it's a "Europe minus UK" thing, but I don't know for sure. Pretty certain though that the French write it like that too.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Next time you should know that any test where the control isn't working, is a defective test. So the third test should have been ignored and redone.

[–] amelia@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There actually is a faint control line. I'm pretty sure it was so "positive" that there were not enough color particles left for the C line.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's true.

I guess as long as the decision taken after the test is the safer option (I.E. not going outside), it doesn't matter much.

[–] amelia@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

There was no doubt I was still positive, I was in bed feeling like crap and going absolutely nowhere. I actually did the test to see if these rapid tests actually give consistent results rather than to see if I still have covid. And because I'm a scientist and I just like measuring things.

[–] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Nice visualisation, but the test on day five is useless. The control isn't showing so something has gone wrong (either on your end, production end or "we'll don't know" end).

If C doesn't have a dash, trash it, it won't tell you anything.

Furthermore, due to oxidation and other foreign influences, I'm not even sure if this diagram is useful if you've taken this photo in one go (lining up the tests). The results are also just valid for like 30 mins or so.

Source: the manual of the tests I had at home (various brands)

Edit: this is merely context. Always check your test and act accordingly. For this visualisation it's okay I guess.

[–] amelia@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

If you look closely you'll see that there is a line at the C, it's just not well visible. I'm pretty sure the test is valid and just "very positive". The way these tests work is that there is a reservoire of gold particles (which give the red color) in between the drop hole and the field with the test lines. The liquid picks up the particles and depending on whether there is virus in the liquid they get stuck at the T line or not (it somehow works with antigens which bind to the virus and the gold particles but I'm not exactly sure how it works). My understanding is that there is a limited amount of gold particles and if almost all of them bind to virus particles because there are just so many of them, there might not be enough left to properly color the C line. I'm also pretty sure that the C line's one and only purpose is to indicate whether the liquid has travelled far enough in the test strip to have passed the T line. The reason why they say that a test with only a line at the T and none at the C is invalid is because during manufacturing the stip might have moved to the wrong place so that what you're seeing is actually a control line at the wrong place, not a test line. Since there is definitely a faint C line visible in my case, the test is okay and I was just very very covidy. ;)

Furthermore, due to oxidation and other foreign influences, I’m not even sure if this diagram is useful if you’ve taken this photo in one go (lining up the tests). The results are also just valid for like 30 mins or so.

That is technically true, but I've observed the tests over the days and except for the color getting a bit darker/greyer, nothing really changed.