Anyone had a bad fever/cough in late December/early January...

[DannyDonut]

And also been tested positive for COVID or strongly suspect they’ve had it in March/April?

There’s still talk of Covid 19 having been here since the end of last year, I am highly skeptical because otherwise surely we’d’ve seen a huge increase in death rates. But I’m still hearing so many people say they’re convinced they had it around/before Christmas (including a couple who were in China in November).

I had a nasty bug early January where I was bed ridden for a few days with a fever and a nasty cough so there was definitely something going round.

But my question is has anyone had both the Christmas bug AND Covid?

[Moondust001]

I know for an absolute fact that I've had it. Reliable anti-body test done. An anti-body test can't tell you when you had it. I can say that I began to develop a fever, sore throat and terrible cough on 22nd December, was so wiped out that between 26th December and 7th January I could barely stand up and spent the entire time in bed or lying on the sofa. I have never been so ill with "flu" in my life, including Swine Flu (which I did get) and cursed the fact that I had got the vaccine for the first ever time and caught flu. I called out the doctor twice - and I NEVER get the doctor in! It was actually the early February before the cough and exhaustion wore off.

I have been totally fit and healthy since then. But obviously I must have been asymptomatic because having all the symptoms at Christmas wouldn't be possible. Would it?

[Thighmageddon]

I had something last week in December, not felt so ill in a very long time if ever.

Delirious with fever, everything hurt, the worst cough I've ever had, conjunctivitis in both eyes. Dh and dd had it too.

If it were now we'd be able to get tested for it.

[NotQuitePerfect]

I would love to know if this is what DH and I had.
30th December, both started the most dreadful, dry, painful cough. Fits of coughing, particularly during the night, that would last 2-3 hours. Fatigue, muscle pain. Few days later, all fine. Few days again, back with the cough & extreme fatigue. Backwards & forwards like this throughout the month of Jan & most of Feb. Actually that doesn’t sound like Covid at all but one of our neighbours had exactly the same and we all agreed we had never had anything like it

[DannyDonut]

Gosh moondust that’s really odd indeed. Either way if you were asymptomatic and had Covid more recently or you had it in December I guess it must be somewhat reassuring to know you’ve developed immunity? I presume you’re in the UK?

A few extended family members also had the same bug at Christmas time and I’d really like for one of them who is in the highly vulnerable category to be able to have an antibody test.

[H1978]

We came back from spain end of December and the majority of us fell ill at some point in the three weeks following with coughs, fever ,chills and lightheadedness. I guess without testing there’s no way of knowing whether it was seasonal flu or covid

[voxnihili]

We were all ill early December. Started with a weird ‘bug’ where we all vomited once. 3 days later DD (15 months) got conjunctivitis and a cough but was otherwise fine. I got tonsillitis followed by conjunctivitis in both eyes. I lost my sense of taste and smell for weeks. I get tonsillitis often but nothing like that - I was in so much pain all over my body and completely lost my appetite (unusual). Antibiotics for 6 weeks, sore throat for that whole time with a tickly cough. DP had dizziness and then a terrible cough for weeks. His dad had an awful cough which he hasn’t fully recovered from and now has oxygen at home. Convinced it was covid as never had anything like it - and nothing has gone through our family like that.

[LaurieFairyCake]

Moondust

Where did you get a RELIABLE antibody test?

I'm also convinced I had it from Christmas Day for 3 weeks

[Imapotato]

We all had a virus, which if we had those symptoms now, you’d be convinced it was covid. This was just before Christmas.

I was exposed to covid three weeks ago, a colleague of mine tested positive. He was coughing right next to me in a pretty small ward office. I haven’t caught it from him, so who knows. Maybe it was covid back in December and I have some immunity.

I guess I’ll never know for sure.

[Thighmageddon]

I should've added to my post but I forgot due to being so busy going from the sofa to the fridge that I work in an area with a lot of Chinese students and tourists. So if it was indeed actually an escaped from the lab accident, then there's potential there for me and others to be infected.

[Hugglespuffed]

I was also really poorly (1 of the worst I've ever felt) in December and to look back would say if we knew about Covid then I would have said it was it. But no, I don't believe it was here then. The hospitals would have been way more stretched and people would have been dying a lot more. You only have to look at the current figures.

[Talulahoopla]

Convinced DP and I had it. We were in Bergamo and Milan early December. Within a week of being home, DP had all the textbook symptoms which,at their worst, lasted a week and took even longer to get over completely. I wasn't just as bad but similar with time off work as well. Couldn't hold our head up. I know they're saying Italy didn't have any cases until January/February but seems a bit of a coincidence that we'd visited the epicentre of the Italian outbreak and come down with something that seems awful like Covid within days of getting back.

[StrawberryBlondeStar]

My eldest (8) had a dry cough for 3 weeks from 26 December. One day of fever over New Year. It was the oddest thing. Was literally going to take him to doctor and the cough stopped. I am convinced it was Covid-19.

[Jeleste]

We were in asia o er xmas/new year and 2-3 days after returning (mid jan) we all came down with a cold. Kids and i all had a fever and cough, DH had a cough too, but no fever. It lasted quite while until we were all healthy again.
I think it was a normal cold. Both kids had the fever over the weekend and only missed one day of school, so i think if it was covid, they would have infected the entire school/village. But we havent had any tests.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

There is absolutely no way the virus only started in November. It wouldn't have been physically possible for enough people to catch it and spread it all over the world. As to why deaths weren't noticed - most people who catch it don't die and most of the people who do die are people who would die from flu, so that was the presumed cause of death. There was no reason for anyone to suspect anything was going on until the alarm was raised from Wuhan and then suddenly cases were noticed in other countries.

It wouldn't surprise me if coronavirus had been circulating to some extent since the end of 2018 - there was a mysterious 'flu' last in the 2018/19 flu season that caused breathing problems and a higher number of deaths.

[Mustbetimeforachange]

There are no reliable antibody tests, they cross react with other coronaviruses. You know, the ones that give you a cough & fever. DS had something last June (was hospitalised), that if he had it now you would swear it was Covid. It wasn't.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

The first recorded death of covid in the US was at the start of March in Washington State. They recently discovered, through autopsies, that two people in California died of it weeks before that and that those two people likely caught it in the community rather than through travel, so covid was circulating in California in January and probably earlier.

edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/us/california-deaths-earliest-in-us/index.html

[PicsInRed]

uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-italy-timing/italian-scientists-investigate-possible-earlier-emergence-of-coronavirus-idUKKBN21D2IT

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

Until it was known that covid existed, no one was looking for it. Up until that point, people infected with covid either felt a ill at home and thought they had a nasty bug or went to hospital and were diagnosed with flu or pneumonia. Until there are a lot of cases, no one joins the dots and notices that anything different is happening, especially if those cases are spread out.

[coconuttelegraph]

About 50% of the population according to threads on here, another example of the repeated daily threads.

[PicsInRed]

www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/health/vaping-marijuana-ecigarettes-sickness.html

[DannyDonut]

Coconut - my question wasn’t who thinks they may have had c19 before February but who had that bug AND has since had symptoms or positive test in March or April. Ie sick twice.
Feel free to point out the threads where that’s been asked.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

Just ignore the posts that complain that things have been said on other threads. I really wonder why people go on a thread just to waste their time complaining like that.

[WutheringBites]

blimey. a whole bundle of conspiracy theories all lined up together. topped off with a sprinkle of nonsense about "reliable antibody tests".

Covid-19 spreads quickly through populations because it's highly contagious, lives on surfaces for hours/days and people travel lots.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

There's no conspiracy theory. There has been a very strange assumption made that just because doctors in Wuhan were the first to notice the infection, that the infection started there and then. It totally stands to reason that before people started dying in hospital there were people sick at home, people travelling around, people passing it on. In fact, that must have been what was happening, there's no other way it would have happened. By the time doctors started seeing enough patients with the same symptoms to think 'hand on a minute, something's going on here' the virus will have had to have quite a bit of time to get around, to infect enough people so that a percentage of them ended up in hospital/ended up dying. That's just plain logic.

[WutheringBites]

No. It's not "logic". It's conspiracy, which might sound "logical", which is why it's so appealing.

with an outbreak, you anticipate there will be clusters of illness - which was what we saw in Wuhan. it was then very clear that transmission happened where new cases were seen outside China - the first detected "imported" case was in Thailand on 13th January. the US had their first case 20th January, with the first case in Europe on 24th January. It didn't have a name until 11th Feb; and it was 28th Feb the first case was recorded in Africa.
Given the severity of the SARS/ARDS that is seen in 20% of cases, if this had been floating about, someone really would have spotted it. The specifics of the symptoms are quite distinct, sadly.