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.

Following this with interest. I think we are experiencing the second wave just now as well.
The deaths from pneumonia @Christmas and the reported cases of a strange flu/cold at the time may never been proved to be Covid or not, as there wasn't testing done, but time will probably tell

I'm open minded to the possibility. There was a large amount of respiritory illness around Christmas, so Covid 19 or not, it will have masked early cases that had symptoms that aren't terribly unusual for that time of year. You're not going to spot an illness you don't know exists when it appears to be broadly normal in symptoms and mild cases don't tend to attract medical attention.

I'm not saying DS had C19, but he was unusually poorly a couple of weeks before Christmas. It appeared to be a bad cold at first and he was exhausted, being awake for about 6-7 hours a day. The second night, he had a horrendous sweat- I checked on him and he was in a puddle to the extent that I checked if it was wee. He was ill for a few days, rallied then went downhill again with his glands coming up like a hamster. At this point I was googling mumps, another illness that he shouldn't have due to age and MMR. On the Monday (last before Christmas), I tried and failed to get hold of the GP and gave up after 35+ attempts. After that he rallied again, and was functional enough to get through the last few days of school with no extras. He really wasn't hinself for a few weeks and didn't really get back on form until March. Normally he's a keen runner, but he was just too drained to run the whole 2k before parkruns were cancelled for C19.
I'm not saying it was C19, but it also should not have been mumps of flu either, and some features overlap with C19. There was a cough in line with my initial thoughys of "bad cold" but its the fever, relapse and lonh recovery that make me open minded.
Attendance in his class was down 25% at that time.

It is known that different strains can be traced to different points of origin, Iceland's largely coming from the UK. Is it possible that an earlier established UK strain before we knew what we were looking for is slightly milder, and more serious cases overlooked as in the case of Gill, purely because we didn't know to look, then the half term travel from Italy increased community transmission points to the point of exponential spread, and possibly a more aggressive strain?

My friend has a definite reason for suspecting she had COVID 19 at Christmas.

Her son had returned from a trip to China on 18th December and she had the worst "cold" she has ever experienced over Christmas. With symptoms exactly as originally described for COVID 19.

There was a very nasty bug going round the end of Nov/Dec. DD's school had to be closed for deep cleaning. It caused a high temperature and a rotten cough. I don't think it was Covid though.

I had something horrible at New Year, we were too ill to do anything. Thing is since then neither of us have been well, okay one day, feeling cruddy the next, etc.

I have this theory that it can come back and people infected in Jan are still battling it???