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Comment by waynecochran | Hacker News Reader

I tend to get every cold and flu that comes around. I was really sick with what I thought was the flu in Feb 2020. I never got covid-19 (afaik) even though I never went to great lengths to avoid it. Only wore masks when asked, and hung around all different crowds of folks - maskers and non-maskers. Got early vaccine but no boosters. Perhaps I got the early alpha or beta version of the disease and that is what has kept me well. Thus article hints that could be the case.

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I also never really went to great lengths to avoid it. I was late 20's when it started (early 30's now), and live a very healthy lifestyle and have never had respiratory problems. I wore a mask wherever required or when others would feel more comfortable, but I did not go out of my way to always wear one when not required, and I got the vaccine and two boosters.

I unlike you though have caught covid-19 nearly every year since 2020 at least once a year. For me it seems like it provides protection for about a year but it doesn't last, and is individual. I kinda just expect to catch it every once in a while at this point.

My wife at the time was in the same boat. A virus hit our household in Feb 2020, she got super sick with many of the expected symptoms for COVID and remained foggy for months. However, we were living in Oregon, near the vaccine research facility in Hillsboro, which also happens to be near the primate research facility. So my theory is that the authorities saw COVID was coming and released the closest COVID (Coronavirus family) analogue they had into the population in a hope that there would be some cross protection.

Oregon had one of the lowest COVID infection rates the entire pandemic. Surely not due to anyone being particularly careful.

That is one heck of a theory.

As an ex-Oregonian, this is particularly interesting. To most this must just sound like craziness, and the intentional release part may be, but for sure there's a primate research facility right in Hillsboro, OR.

Apparently my grandfather helped design something with the cages, which is just weird for me.

There's a primate research facility AND someone caught the flu? That can't be a coincidence!

You're right. It's just most of the time these sort of claims are so distant. I just find it interesting to have been proximate to the places mentioned. That's all.

This is prime conspiracy territory. Did you perhaps stop taking any medication recently?

Hey, I can entertain the possibility without attaching much weight to whether it is true or not. It doesn't really change anything anyway.

Hehe fair enough. Entertaining wild theories can be fun.

Or she could have just gotten Covid-19. First laboratory confirmed Covid-19 case was in Washington state on January 18, 2020. Oregon's not too far away from Washington.

Also there was likely cases floating around in the US before then, that was just the first confirmed case.

According to this timeline on the CDC website[1], there was reports of presumptive cases of Covid-19 in Oregon on February 28, 2020 as well. That's close enough to your timeline that I think it's more likely she just got Covid-19 (or a particularly bad case of the flu).

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html

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