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[Maximum Spin]

I guess I was just worried that, say, my dad would get better for a day or two but then catch a mutated strain from me, getting sick again. Then we'd all be trapped in a cycle of sickness as we gave each other new germs.

It didn't make a ton of sense in my mind but I know that Covid mutates quickly and it's perfectly possible to catch it again months later.

It sounds like you have some misconceptions about how reinfection works in the first place.
Coronaviruses "mutate quickly" in general, relatively speaking, but it's falling antibody titres (and to an extent changes in the antibody types being produced) that drive reinfection, not mutation - most mutations don't even change the resulting protein product at all, and those that do usually don't affect antibody binding (this is necessary - the viral proteins still have to have roughly the same forms in order to function, so mutations that can both inhibit binding and still produce a working protein are rare). Even when they do, the effect is most likely partial, and with the broad spectrum of differnetly-targeted antibodies produced in an actual infection, inhibiting antibody binding in one place still doesn't change the binding anywhere else. You can also tell this from the fact that the Omicron type is substantially different from the original strain, but still hasn't fully neutralized antibodies that were made to target it, although they seem to be much less effective. Most of the currently circulating variants are just not different enough from earlier Omicron-type variants for there to be much difference in antibody binding. (Of course, the considerable differences we see between Omicron and the original are enough, but that's not something that happens easily or often.)
Another line of argument that could help: viruses go through an enormous number of generations just inside one single person. The viruses inside you at the end of an infection have experienced a huge amount of evolution toward "infecting this guy in particular" compared to the ones that went in. If it were that easy to mutate away from your antibodies while the immune system is active and producing them at high levels, you'd never be able to clear an infection at all. (Well, the innate immune system would still help, but it'd have a hard time of it.)

Now, there is a caveat, which is that, if the body is still specifically producing antibodies targeted toward the original strain even while being infected by an Omicron-type strain, which can happen, then those antibodies just don't work very well and you can still be infected; but that has nothing to do with ongoing mutation so the speed of mutation doesn't apply. You could be hit by the same exact Omicron strain again and again and fall for it every time. That shouldn't apply to you, though, since you've never had it before, unless you already had antibodies to earlier strains.

[Sirus]

Update: whole family has tested negative! Still some lingering symptoms but we're all a lot better than we were a week ago. I think that paxlovid treatment might be to thank, but it's hard to tell for sure; perhaps the vaccinations did most of the work, or perhaps we caught a mild strain, or who knows.

No matter the case, I'm glad we weren't all miserable for two weeks or more.

[Loud Whispers]

I think I suffered san loss speaking to a nurse who kept saying things like "I think the thermometer is broken everyone's temperature is 36.3*C" or "I don't think the vaccine works because everyone who gets really sick had the vaccine"

I am too tired for this

[Ziusudra]

H5N1 found in North Atlantic seals, though:

Data do not support seal-to-seal transmission as a primary route of infection.

[King Zultan]

H5N1 is the one that gets called pig flu isn't it?

Also if it can infect seals does it even need to be called pig flu anymore, might be time to rename it?

[Ziusudra]

No, it's the one called bird flu, swine is a strain of H1N1. The famous 1918-1920 flu was an H1N1 strain.

Most viruses can infect other other animal kingdoms, but are less virulent when they do, unless they adapt, which is the worry with this.

But it's just like that 1918 strain, many still call it "the Spanish flu" even though it didn't really hav any thing to do with Spain. But it's easier for human brains to remember things like that than alphanumeric strings like HPAI A(H5N1) or A/H1N1/1918.

[Lord Shonus]

But it's just like that 1918 strain, many still call it "the Spanish flu" even though it didn't really hav any thing to do with Spain. But it's easier for human brains to remember things like that than alphanumeric strings like HPAI A(H5N1) or A/H1N1/1918.

Well, it did have something to do with Spain, as that's where the outbreak was first reported. Primarily because Spain was one of the very few countries in Europe where "stabbing some other guy in a trench" was not the latest fad, and thus they were not subject to wartime censorship. Most of Europe was also getting hit (that's probably how it made it to the US - military traffic back and forth), but major disease outbreaks are the kind of thing you really don't want your enemies to know about.

[Ziusudra]

Except it appears to hav first been observed in Kansas as early as January and the French press initially called it the American flu, and only switched after it hit Madrid hard.

Anyway, when I said "it didn't really hav any thing to do with Spain" I meant epidemiologically.

[Ziusudra]

More mammals dying from H5N1 'bird' flu.

While 20 cats have been confirmed to have been killed by the H5N1 subtype of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Poland in recent weeks, the source of the outbreak among the felines remains elusive.