It's only by sheer coincidence that I learned I had it. In spite of testing twice (negative) after I developed a very slight cough following an event--which I wrote off to typical conference crud at that point--a couple weeks later I had to get tested before attending another event. (I had no symptoms of anything at that point.) And I tested weakly positive.

If I hadn't been attending the other (actually third) event, I'd never have known.

I believe that people who have been consistently super-cautious and generally avoided indoor crowds may have avoided catching it. But most people who travel, shop in sores, go to indoor events, etc. have probably had it even if they can't prove it.

Home COVID tests generally don’t show results from most asymptomatic cases even if they are actively fighting it off. It’s a question of viral loads being high enough to kick their immune system into high gear without being high enough to be easy to detect or easy to infect others.

Chances are he got COVID and fought it off without particularly noticing which isn’t in any way unusual for healthy people. 1+ million dead Americans demonstrates it’s a serious disease, but that doesn’t mean everyone was hit equally.

He's had at least two negative PCR tests taken at separate highly likely times of infection :)

PCR tests for the disease which makes is very sensitive to viral loads. This is why the advice is “If you do not have symptoms but have been exposed to COVID-19, wait at least 5 full days after your exposure before taking a test.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/t...

Many people will fight off an infection in those 5 days, but it’s not considered a problem as asymptomatic people are unlikely to spread the disease. PCR accuracy of asymptomatic people is still surprisingly low, but again that’s not necessarily a problem.