how long can you be a carrier of Covid?

Title pretty much says it all, ill freely admit to high levels of ignorance on all things medical.

But in June I am supposed to be going TDY for 3 weeks wife was going to be gone for 10 days in that time frame as well, and my dad was going to be watching our son.

He is 78, cancer survivor and now I am wondering if I should pull out of the TDY so we dont risk exposing him. (He lives in central florida so we will have to pass through a hot zone to get to him)

Yea I know that's a long way out but while cases should drop this summer I haven't seen anything saying it will be gone till fall.

So if any of you smarter medical types can fill in the gaps for me I would appreciate it

You can carry Covid19 without showing symptoms about as long as you could herpes. No joke, they are the same kind of "infection" and equally hard to get rid of. It would probably be inside you forever or until your body turns to dust.

To be perfectly clear, if your dad doesn't have it yet, he will eventually. This virus won't be simply erased from the planet, it will spread and achieve more or less uniform presence until everyone who can't persist inevitably expires. It will become part of our species biology the way a dozen other bugs did. It might be smarter to wait until he can be immunized.

a reply to: Irishhaf

There's one documented outlier of 49 days.

www.medrxiv.org...

a reply to: Irishhaf

Don't think you'll be going...there are no graduations, concerts, weddings, trips etc...done. We're done.

It will be a new normal

Right. So just give up on everything. That's a great attitude!

June might be wishful thinking for a trip like that but once the treatments and vaccines are ready there will be a return to life again.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
You can carry Covid19 without showing symptoms about as long as you could herpes. No joke, they are the same kind of "infection" and equally hard to get rid of. It would probably be inside you forever or until your body turns to dust.

To be perfectly clear, if your dad doesn't have it yet, he will eventually. This virus won't be simply erased from the planet, it will spread and achieve more or less uniform presence until everyone who can't persist inevitably expires. It will become part of our species biology the way a dozen other bugs did. It might be smarter to wait until he can be immunized.

This absolutely requires citation .
And no fan made YouTube videos
At all

originally posted by: TzarChasm
You can carry Covid19 without showing symptoms about as long as you could herpes. No joke, they are the same kind of "infection" and equally hard to get rid of. It would probably be inside you forever or until your body turns to dust.

To be perfectly clear, if your dad doesn't have it yet, he will eventually. This virus won't be simply erased from the planet, it will spread and achieve more or less uniform presence until everyone who can't persist inevitably expires. It will become part of our species biology the way a dozen other bugs did. It might be smarter to wait until he can be immunized.

Yeah, this needs sourced or deleted because there is NO indication that your first paragraph has any truth to it.

This is an interesting question that’s I’ve been wondering too.

a reply to: Irishhaf

I am also curious to know. We have had a trip planned for months and were supposed to depart May 29th to pick up granddaughter for the summer and then head further south to be there for our grandson's first birthday. Also we planned to visit both of our parents and siblings along the way. It is looking more and more like travel restrictions will probably still be in place even then.

It will break my heart to cancel, especially since this is my last opportunity to see my step-dad who is about to turn 94 and doesn't have much time left because of health problems- doctors have told my mother to just make him comfortable and get his affairs in order.

a reply to: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk

Yea we were also looking to go see my grandmother who just turned 98 this summer so she could meet her grandson.

So that's on hold as well for us, physically she is fantastic mentally she is finally starting to slip.

originally posted by: HalWesten
Right. So just give up on everything. That's a great attitude!

June might be wishful thinking for a trip like that but once the treatments and vaccines are ready there will be a return to life again.

.................and a vaccine is still a year to year-and-a-half away. Give up on everything vs staying alive. It's roulette.

Lots of "we don't know" so far. I did some digging.
Here's an article with some numbers about asymptomatic incubation, but it seems more geared towards pre-symptomatic transmission.
jamanetwork.com...
From the above article:

The sequence of events suggests that the coronavirus may have been transmitted by the asymptomatic carrier. The incubation period for patient 1 was 19 days, which is long but within the reported range of 0 to 24 days.

Also, to the OP's question, there's a lot of "we don't know yet" going around:
www.theguardian.com...
From the above article:

Hillmann: A significant proportion of people who are totally asymptomatic are contagious for some portion of time. We just don’t know [for how long] at this point, because we don’t have the kind of testing available to screen for asymptomatic infections.

If anyone can come up with a better answer, shoot, this is a great question. Not sure anyone knows a hard number though.
Also remember that there is a difference between "asymptomatic" and "pre-symptomatic" -- the latter being the long incubation period while the virus is in the person, but before the person shows symptoms.

originally posted by: HalWesten

originally posted by: TzarChasm
You can carry Covid19 without showing symptoms about as long as you could herpes. No joke, they are the same kind of "infection" and equally hard to get rid of. It would probably be inside you forever or until your body turns to dust.

To be perfectly clear, if your dad doesn't have it yet, he will eventually. This virus won't be simply erased from the planet, it will spread and achieve more or less uniform presence until everyone who can't persist inevitably expires. It will become part of our species biology the way a dozen other bugs did. It might be smarter to wait until he can be immunized.

Yeah, this needs sourced or deleted because there is NO indication that your first paragraph has any truth to it.

It's called virus latency, there have been articles about treated patients relapsing after the infection gets "killed" but it's still there even if it's in genetic jail with other nasty stuff your body picks up over the years

a reply to: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk

My mother is 92 and I feel much the same about her. I'm 69 and if it doesn't get her it still has a very good chance of getting me. Either way I plan on being with her as much as I can while there is still a sense of safety about it.

a reply to: Irishhaf


We don’t know enough about coved and are still learning, but if we look at SARS, it says 10 days after fever goes away.


www.cdc.gov...

NHS webpage advice is it takes 14 days for symptoms to appear and then 7 days before it is safe to judge if you can stop self-isolating.

No advice provided for the asymptomatic. No mention of carriers or if the virus becomes dormant at any stage.


www.nhs.uk...

originally posted by: UnBreakable

originally posted by: HalWesten
Right. So just give up on everything. That's a great attitude!

June might be wishful thinking for a trip like that but once the treatments and vaccines are ready there will be a return to life again.

.................and a vaccine is still a year to year-and-a-half away. Give up on everything vs staying alive. It's roulette.

Bull. Several entities have vaccines ready to test on humans. This is not a stretch, it's not an unknown category of viri, it isn't going to take that long IF governments will fast-track this instead of burying it in paperwork.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: HalWesten

originally posted by: TzarChasm
You can carry Covid19 without showing symptoms about as long as you could herpes. No joke, they are the same kind of "infection" and equally hard to get rid of. It would probably be inside you forever or until your body turns to dust.

To be perfectly clear, if your dad doesn't have it yet, he will eventually. This virus won't be simply erased from the planet, it will spread and achieve more or less uniform presence until everyone who can't persist inevitably expires. It will become part of our species biology the way a dozen other bugs did. It might be smarter to wait until he can be immunized.

Yeah, this needs sourced or deleted because there is NO indication that your first paragraph has any truth to it.

It's called virus latency, there have been articles about treated patients relapsing after the infection gets "killed" but it's still there even if it's in genetic jail with other nasty stuff your body picks up over the years

Still needs a source for your original claim.

a reply to: Irishhaf

I say it is indefinite and nobody can give you a straight answer on it.

If your dad is compromised, I say everybody should act like they have it.

---

I've had a throat infection dormant in my throat for over a month and comes and goes. Who knows what it is..

Also who knows, this thing can break out in Florida so it doesn't seem so sensitive to heat like the FLu.