Originally published at: If you've never had COVID-19, this research study needs you! | Boing Boing
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While I’d like to sign up for this, I feel like I’m tempting fate.
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What a difference a day makes! Could’ve signed up for this…yesterday!
(This is what I get for getting on an airplane where maybe three other people out of a hundred kept their masks on throughout)
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How can one possibly know that they haven’t had it?
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Sorry to hear that! Best wishes for light symptoms and a speedy recovery.
(And yeah, I’m still avoiding planes for just this reason.)
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Only if i get paid 
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I have never had covid.
I’m also staying home and wearing a mask the few times I do go out into populated areas.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have magic genes that are helping me… 
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Yeah I’ve been very cautious for the last 2.5 years. I only eat outside and only when cases are low. I never stopped masking. I don’t go into stores unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t fly. I carry an Aranet CO2 monitor.
I’ve had 3 exposure notifications on our state system, which I’m sure means my actual exposures are much higher. But I don’t think I have any special immunity; I’m just careful and lucky.
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…ookay, what’s the CO2 monitor do for ya?
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I’m in the same boat, and who would have thought that the taking the steps to prevent catching the virus would actually work? 
Conversely, my spouse and youngin’ each got it at the same time, and I wore a mask in common areas, and mostly holed up in my home office for a week and never had any symptoms.
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I know, right? I’ve wondered about this quite often because somehow Mrs Peas, the Littlest Pea and I have never had symptoms or positive tests, but plenty of calls too close to dismiss (the Peas Twins got it from their mother and numerous other very close contacts). It’s virtually impossible for us to avoid it with three school-age kids and two households, yet here we are. I’m very much not a superstitious person, but about 5% of me is still like, “Are you sure?”
Me too, except it was my son’s bedroom with a heavy blanket to over the door to prevent drafts into the house. Worst. Christmas. Ever!
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I could sign up for this study but I don’t think they will like the answer. I work from home, get deliveries and honestly barley go anywhere. When my roomates got covid I just locked myself in my room and went into virtual spaces. So if I have a magic gene it is related to all my anxieties and OCD (Actual OCD not internet OCD) around contamination.
Also as a side note: doesn’t this study vaguely stink of eugenics?
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I doubt they’re using any identified superdodgers as mating stock, more likely to develop drugs and vaccines.
I’d do it, though gf has been sick for a week, and I may finally succumb.
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God I hope so. But I expect people will twist the research after the fact or take the term superdodgers and run with it into really bad buillshit. The past 8 years has made me cynical for how far the Nazi bullshit spreads.
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Both parents and one of my kids got the bug this year. That probably rules out my genetics.
So the study is looking primarily for people who were exposed to Covid and didn’t get it (or don’t appear to have), especially family members in close contact.
My partner and I are blessedly covid-free still (as far as we and the tests we’ve taken tell us), but we are also aggressively social-distanced (and still mask indoors everywhere!). But, since moving to Orlando, we have also spent a rather significant amount of time at Disney, including dining indoors, where we aren’t masked while eating.
Our running theory is our continuing to mask up with good masks is a large part of why we haven’t been hit yet, and frankly, I doubt we’re magically both “immune,” but I think we’ll reach out to the study just in case. It’d be awesome if they discovered either that an immunity exists or that there’s a genetic component to being asymptomatic that could be replicated!
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I’ve been a subject in a few vaccine trials, and FB and google ads target them to me. If comments are allowed, there’s often some crazy along with 
and 
emoji. Whether there’s a basis or not, they’ll rage against science. The last thing I’m going to so is to let the nutbar brigade discourage me from helping.
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If someone is completely asymptomatic, I assume that would make them less contagious because they’d be coughing and exhaling fewer virus laden droplets for others to inhale. Does anyone know whether that’s actually true?
The wife and I have been Covid free, but I’ve chocked that up to the precautions we’ve taken, including vaccinations and boosters and extreme hermit behavior. As far as I know, we’ve not been exposed. Likewise, neither of us has gotten the flu or a cold during this time. Even my allergies have improved. I’ve taken that as a sign we’ve managed to dodge many germs.
Tomorrow, I have to take a short flight, but I’ll be masked up and I’ve had my bivalent booster shot.
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After pre-screening for people who think they never had it, they will probably do an antibody test. People who have had asymptomatic cases of COVID should have antibodies for the nuclearcapsid protein, while all of the approved vaccines only produce spike antibodies.
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It’s likely although there is a lot we don’t know and there appear to be a lot of other factors affecting how likely someone is to spread COVID. For instance there is evidence of “super spreaders” but we don’t know if that is something about the person, a random chance of the way the infection develops, whether it is more likely with symptomatic people, or even if it is just behavioral differences.
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