Do you remember this Covid news footage?

[Sitonyourdressmavis]

Chatting to SIL last night and we were remembering news footage we watched before the Christmas of Covid when the news was coming out of China about this virus. We clearly remember watching as a family news footage (would have been on BBC normal news not online) from China of people collapsing and fitting in the streets then being zipped up on stretchers and body bags and loaded into a black and yellow van by hazmat suited doctors/army. We all clearly remember this , it was not a film. What was this footage? Covid didn't present like that at all? We remember being really scared. SiL is a nurse and we remember her saying "what the hell is this thing"
Anyone else remember this footage?

Your previous summary

"scary news report , the zipping up and the bags and stretchers /vans.

This one

"Scary report on the news".

No mention of virus, China, epidemic, pneumonia. The words you've used could fit the 18th December 5pm BBC news showing historic footage of the bombing, or fears about a nursing strike just as the NHS is heading into flu season.

My Dd and a friend were invited by a Chinese university on an exchange trip when doing their post grad. It was I think Oct/Nov and they had to have their temperature checked before entering the subways- I thought that was a bit odd!

My understanding is that China had various measures in place before the pandemic to help prevent the spread of viruses like wearing masks on public transport and that was due to their experience of SARS. I suspect that's why your DD had her temperature taken, not because of the start of the spread of covid.

It makes sense that people with local contacts (including a school heading there on a trip) might have more awareness that there was a virus circulating in Wuhan earlier in December from word of mouth. From what I've read there were informal reports of a pneumonia like virus circulating from 12 December, but official accounts didn't start until very late in the month.

Interesting video on YouTube here, OP but obviously not a BBC news one.

My work has a china office. The first we were getting proper hints of issues was later in jan in the run up to chinese new year when basically there were concerns about work travel. It was very vague at that stage.

It all got much more serious from feb 2020.

There have been a lot of flu/respiratory virus outbreaks in asia op. I would assume you saw some sort of news report about a different viral strain earlier on, and now with the covid media coverage that followed a month or two later it seems like it was a precursor of it. In reality its probably something different.

I also saw something on tv (and we only have normal channels) before Christmas 2019. We were ill from 16th-18th Dec (and I've just checked and it was the only sick leave I've taken in years) and my boss said he hoped I didn't have the Chinese flu and we discussed how awful the symptoms looked

OP, this is an interesting article on how the news out of Wuhan spread - including to Western media based in China.

Early footage had to be smuggled out of China, they weren't allowing filming, it was phone footage taken covertly a lot at hospitals where there were people dying in numbers. How authentic all of it was who knows, but it looked real and people were risking getting arrested for filming what was going on. And subsequent events like the high death toll in the UK shows there was something really serious going on.

Naive beyond belief.

It was also quite a nasty flu season wasn't it? It started quite early too.

Yes, it's very easy for our brains to pull together information like this. And every time we think about something, our brain lays down new connections, even grafting about much older ones (especially family rituals such as all sitting down together).

At this point, it's a memory of a memory of a memory, layered on top of a routine much older memory, which has been edited by subsequent information.

People's front doors were boarded up and you'd hear screams coming from blocks of flats. People were thrown in vans. It was utterly bizarre and scary. What about the massive tents put up around the UK supposedly to store the expected bodies....

@DeftWasp DHs friend also works in this area and they met around Christmas (can't remember when exactly) and he said it was all a big hype over nothing and dismissed it. Same guy had us all freaked out over SARS a few years previous.

No one ever mentioned it to him since, I'd say he is mortified.

I remember it being about corona virus in china well before xmas. More like end october into. nov.? there was news about live animal markets in china selling bats for food & at least 1 chinese Dr. was telling authorities there that he was treating people he thought had a new (corona) virus, think he was suppressed & maybe even himself died of the virus. Tho couldn’t say whether this was in a regular tv news?
Sorry if I’ve just repeated something some1 has already written

I know lots of people who had a similar illness in November/december 2019 and are sure it was Covid, including quite a few posters in this thread.

Question: in March 2020, when it really took hold in the UK, went in to lockdown to reduce the spread, yet the death rate went through the roof. If it had actually been in circulation in the UK in late 2019, would it not have spread rapidly and caused a noticeable untick in the death rate then? Especially with all the mixing and travel that must have happened over Christmas?

People get undiagnosed flu like illnesses (including flu) every year. It’s not unusual at all.

I’m also really enjoying all the people on this thread who were concerned about the spread before the WHO were even aware.

There’s a lot of false memories here, as previously discussed.

I don’t watch TV news anymore because it depresses the shit out of me. I prefer to pick and choose the articles I’d like to read in the NYT or Guardian.

Covid was a hideous time. I was pregnant during the first lockdown and terrified so never left the house. I became severely depressed and gained lots of weight too which amplified things. DH and I would look at the stats daily- deaths and hospitalisations and be relieved we were so well shielded safe in our home. He’d leave once every ten days to go do a food shop and he’d memorised the layout of the shop so he could whiz round as quickly as possible. I left to attend medical appointments but that was it.

Took me two years and lots of counselling to move on.

This thread really shows some people’s personalities- when I’m speaking of something I never discount that there’s a chance I could possibly be wrong because there’s always a chance someone could be wrong. Things I learnt in school or college were proven wrong years later, it is known that there’s different opinions and information on the internet and out there in general. What people believe to be true could be true or it might not be, I don’t think people have to tell someone so blatantly that they’re fully sure on everything, especially given it’s something we’re mostly checking on the internet!!

I absolutely remember seeing the footage you describe. It was definitely about Covid, not bird flu or Ebola.
I couldn't say it was before January but it was on the BBC news. My husband said it was bollocks but I believed it and it scared me.

Lots of DH’s colleagues had it in February then our DS who was 1 at the time was blue lighted into hospital in early March with breathing problems. Almost definitely Covid but it was still very early days and pre-lockdown. I remember the paramedic saying it “wouldn’t be that big a problem in the U.K.”

We were all pretty naive in the early days but yes it was in the country way before March.

Ah, yes. Because everything you read on the internet is absolutely a fact.

Nope. It's a reported thing in my diary that happened on the day as I write it every night.
Have never missed a night

Hi OP (haven’t read the entire thread just yet).
I asked good old AI.

this is what it says about the first reports in English:

1–3 January 2020 — first wave of international coverage

After the 31 December announcement, many outlets ran short pieces.

Examples included:

• Reuters
• BBC
• CNN
• South China Morning Post (English)
• Hong Kong media

These early stories still described it as:

“mystery pneumonia” or “unknown virus”

Most people encountering it casually would have seen it first week of January.

I remember news about a virus in November.

31 December 2019 — first English news articles

These are essentially the first day the story appeared in English media.

1️⃣ Deutsche Welle (DW) — 31 Dec 2019

“China investigates serious SARS-like virus”

This article reported that:

• 27 people had viral pneumonia in about:blank Wuhan
• Authorities were investigating a possible SARS-like illness
• Hospitals had issued emergency notifications

It referenced online speculation already circulating in China.

This is one of the earliest clearly documented English reports.