Poll of the week: How many times have you had Covid-19?

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How many times have you had Covid-19?

While no one knows for sure, it’s likely that more than 75% of the US population has had Covid-19 at least once. CDC data suggest that between prior infections and vaccinations, over 97% of the population had some kind of immunity to the virus by the end of 2022. That’s a lot of people with at least some, if not substantial protection. It explains some of the findings from Monday’s post on flu overtaking Covid hospitalizations.

So, in what may become a recurring habit, I again took to social media. This time, I asked my followers on Threads and Twitter/X how many times they’ve had Covid.

Now, as I mentioned last week (when I posted polls asking how long people are isolating when they get Covid nowadays), I am aware that my Threads and Twitter/X followers are a highly biased sample who are unlikely to reflect the general population. But I’m interested in what’s going on in my echo chamber.

Before I reveal the results from my online polls, let me ask you, the wonderful Inside Medicine community, the same question. (Note: I want to know how many times you’ve been infected, not how many positive tests you’ve had. So if you got Covid-19 one time, and tested positive on a rapid test three times that week, you’d select one as your answer.) So, without peeking at the results below (because they’ll influence your choices), please chime in…

Results from last week’s Inside Medicine poll.

Before I reveal the results of my two social media polls on this latest question (and as an excuse to buy some real estate here so that your eyes do not automatically see the poll results for this week’s question before voting above), here’s what y’all said about how long you’re isolating with Covid these days (i.e., in the year 2024).

Inside Medicine reader poll results from last week

Of note, 89% of you said you’re isolating for 5-10 days or until testing negative on rapid tests. That’s a pretty good result! I’m glad so many of you are being careful and conscientious to your communities. While I hope we can someday routinely rely on the strength (i.e., the brightness) of the positive test lines on rapid tests to end isolation sooner (in concert with n95 masking and avoiding high-risk settings), for now, those of you isolating for 5-10 days or waiting until testing negative on rapid tests to end isolation are doing your part to decrease spread. On behalf of everyone, thanks!

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To remind you how your answer stacked up to voters elsewhere, here again are the results from Threads and Twitter/X (see below). As you can see, slightly fewer (77%-79%) respondents on those others platforms say they are still isolating for at least 5 days or waiting until they test negative on rapid tests before ending their Covid isolation. Still, that is not bad! I actually expected more people to say they’re doing a lot less these days. Of course, I do suspect that outside of this particular echo chamber, most people are doing a lot less, unfortunately, whether by choice or necessity.

Results from last week’s social media polls on Threads (left) and Twitter/X (right).

This week’s readout on Threads and Twitter/X engagement. Once again, my social media polls attracted more voters on Threads than on Twitter/X, despite the fact that I still have around 16-times more followers on Twitter/X than I do on Threads. As before, I posted the polls simultaneously, and both lasted 24 hours. There were fewer votes overall this week (on both sites) compared to last week when thousands of people chimed in. (I have no idea why. Maybe just bad timing?)

The results from this week’s Threads and Twitter/X polls.

Results from this week’s Threads and Twitter/X polls.

Around 36% and 39% of voters responded saying they’ve never tested positive for Covid-19. However, in a follow up poll (not shown), I asked people who indicated “0” in the first question, if they believe they’ve had Covid-19 at some point in the past, but have never tested positive, either due to lack of access to testing or a strong belief that they had a falsely negative test. Around 27% of those saying they’ve never tested positive believe that they’ve actually had Covid. This means that of the voters, around 26%-30% believe they’ve never had Covid, while 70%-74% know or believe they have.

That all seems like a pretty reasonable proxy for the country overall. On one hand, my echo chamber is probably inhabited by people who have taken more precautions than average. (So rates here should be a bit lower than general rates nationwide.) On the other, the 27% of people who responded that they’ve never tested positive but think they’ve had Covid anyway probably exceeds that belief among the general population. So, my guess is that these forces offset one another and that these reported rates of prior Covid infections match that of the general US population.

Again, I’ll remind you that these audiences are those who choose to follow me on social media. And, once again, I’ll be curious to see how you all voted by comparison!

Help! What should I ask next?

I’m finding these unscientific polling exercises to be rather informative and thought-provoking, aren’t you?

Now’s your turn to guide me! What question should I ask my social media followers (and this community) next week?

Chime in via the Comments section below!