To think that the belief that COVID was in the UK much earlier than first thought is a positive thing on many levels?

[AlternativePerspective]

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/spate-of-possible-uk-coronavirus-cases-from-2019-come-to-light?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A friend of mine had severe cold in December and had an antibody test last week and it came back positive.

Others also now saying they had bad cold/flu like illnesses back then which in retrospect could have been COVID.

If COVID was here in December then it’s possible it could have been here even before that.

if not, then it still means that an awful lot more people will have had and recovered from the virus. Also it puts the risk level down because the risk is based on the number of cases since February. Considerably more cases than that reduces the risk level.

And, if people are still testing positive for antibodies then this is a positive step towards the belief that we do develop immunity.

It would be a positive as we've all had similar. However your friend could have had a normal virus, caught Covid this year and been asymptomatic. No way to tell retrospectively.

I was the most ill I have ever been over Christmas and new year - it was mid January before I could taste or smell anything, and we had to cancel Christmas completely. Was it COVID? Probably not, just some horrible virus - I will never know.

I think my granddad had it 8n january.
He went in to hospital for an unrelated reason. Healthy when he went in, but injured.
Injury was fine after investigation

But he had the most awful cough he has ever had in nearly 90 years.
His 4 bay ward was "closed for isolation due to norovirus " but nobody left their bed for any extra toilet trips.
Nobody was sick.
Gdad was on oxygen for about a month. Lost loads of weight.
My mum and uncle had "severe flu" after visiting him. Worst that they have had in about 60 years.

As a family (young Primary aged kids and a toddler) we've never had such a healthy few months December - now?

Obviously we've been in for months now but we had zero illness from December onwards.

Me and DP and toddler did have an awful virus but this was Mid November.

5yo was decimated in her first term or reception [10 days off for various illnesses, including a sickness bug that kept coming back, she'd have 48h clear and then be bloody sick again!].

But we've been incredibly healthy for months now. So I am doubtful we've had it

Actually I lie, the toddler ended up on antibiotics for a chest infection on NYE.... so we did have some kind of lergie in late December but it was just the toddler.

This is the Northern choir from December. Seems very plausible. One of them was briefly hospitalised.
www.bbc.com/news/health-52589449
Andy Gill died of pneumonia on 1st February after weeks in hospital after a trip to China (but not Wuhan) at the end of 2019, and it seems likely to have been Covid-19, several of his friends and family were also ill, but blood tests are inconclusive.

Same here - came back from the Caribbean in November with what I now think was Covid, symptoms were spot on

I'm afraid that's more likely to be confirmation bias.
Covid symptoms are common to many other respiratory virus illnesses.

My scientist husband with hindsight thinks he may have had covid in November/December last year. He had the worst cough ever and tightness in his chest. He could only sleep sitting up. He's asthmatic so was at doctors almost every day for the first week and it took several weeks to clear up.

For me it would be a very good thing if it really were covid and both my daughter and I are high risk and terrified. Imagine the relief of finding out we'd been lving in the same house as covid for weeks and survived.

Nobody has yet mentioned the possibility that if covid was here earlier, the reason people didn’t start dying of it sooner could be vitamin D levels, which are at their lowest at the end of winter after everyone’s reserves have been depleted.

There is no evidence that sars-cov-2 was circulating outside of China, or even Wuhan, as early as November. There were very few cases, and the phylogenetic trees indicate that this is correct. Still highly unlikely during December. Possible in January.

Still, people, every single Winter there are threads with people discussing the virus that's going around and with similar characteristics to covid.
Every single winter.

Furthermore, many people don't even develop symptoms or very mild. So, you could have had a nasty virus, then infected with sars-cov-2 without significant symptoms and then test positive.

Everyone wants to believe they’ve had it back in November or whenever because they want to believe they’ve got antibodies. They’re clinging on to the hope that they don’t need to worry about it.

I had a very strange, but not particularly severe 'something' in January, which included loss of sense of taste. No idea whether it was covid. The last time I went to my hairdresser in mid-March (eek!) we were talking about it, and she said she had had what she described as "the 100-day cough". She knows loads of people, and said she knew lots of other people who had had this "100-day cough". Again, no idea whether covid, but it does show there was something going round from at least December.

Everyone wants to believe they’ve had it back in November or whenever because they want to believe they’ve got antibodies. They’re clinging on to the hope that they don’t need to worry about it

In some ways for me I don’t need to worry about it, I work from home, DD is off school until at least September. It doesn’t matter to me in the slightest whether I have had it or not, I’m just interested more than anything given how ill I was.

I was ill over Xmas, new year and into Jan 5 weeks in total. I became ill again on the 12th March and it's still ongoing. The symptoms were not the same. The biggest difference is the burning in chest, and continuous chest pain this time. In December, it was more or less fatigue aches chills and sweating. No respiratory problems or chest and back burning.

Yes some similarities, I've had both now and they are definitely not the same virus.

Why have scientists been able to prove that CV has been around for so long when just about every poster on here and their dog had it months before it was recognised?

Why don't you all email Chris Whitty, get antibody tests and advance the knowledge of the global virus experts, scientists are missing an opportunity on the 21365 threads on here full of people who are sure they had it when it was hiding from medical statistics.

Given we now know for certain that Covid was present in the Paris area by the end of December, I can't imagine it wasn't present in say London to some degree then too.

Why don't you all email Chris Whitty, get antibody tests and advance the knowledge of the global virus experts, scientists are missing an opportunity on the 21365 threads on here full of people who are sure they had it when it was hiding from medical statistics

Actually I did note it on the Cambridge app, and read in the Times that they think there may have been an earlier spike because of all the reports they've had.

@ITonyah

Why don't you all email Chris Whitty, get antibody tests and advance the knowledge of the global virus experts, scientists are missing an opportunity on the 21365 threads on here full of people who are sure they had it when it was hiding from medical statistics

Actually I did note it on the Cambridge app, and read in the Times that they think there may have been an earlier spike because of all the reports they've had.

That's good, it all helps to get a definitive answer on this question that just won't go away.

ok, so how come nobody needed to be hospitalized with it before Match

We know that the current covid strain in Europe is not the original strain. There is a possibilty that this is the dreaded more deadly second wave. That's what happened with Spanish flu, first wave was a nasty shitty flu wave but people got over it, second wave it had mutated and was deadly.

Many of my teenage son’s boarding schoolmates were very poorly with flu in January including one who had returned to school after spending Christmas at his home in Wuhan. I’m intrigued to know what their antibody tests show if they get them.

Dds boarding school had a few but they were all tested and none had it.

We know that the current covid strain in Europe is not the original strain. There is a possibilty that this is the dreaded more deadly second wave.

Can't really be bothered to explain why, again, but just NO.

‘Why don't you all email Chris Whitty, get antibody tests and advance the knowledge of the global virus experts’

Because increasingly it’s looking like antibodies aren’t the full picture of how covid is fought off, especially in mild cases and among younger patients. As we come to understand more about the role of T cells it might become easier to work out what has been going on.

It is interesting- my company has central London headquarters. in december to february , literally everyone went down with a nasty cold/flue, often accompanied by a horrendous cough and complete loss of taste.
Nobody in the company caught corona virus since people have been tested for it. nobody out of 1500 people.
I‘m curious to see antibody tests!