To think people may have already had coronavirus?

[minniebo]

I had pneumonia recently, pretty severe, hospitalised. Everyone I've told has said, 'it's weird how many people have said they've had pneumonia in the last month or two.' Yes I know it's the season for these things but it's a bit unusual that so many young and fit people have had pneumonia.

Just out of interest, has anyone you know had pneumonia in the last month or so (in the UK)?

I forgot to answer the question. Yes i know 2 people with pneumonia !
But have most years

If it was circulating widely then we would be seeing an excess of hospitalizations and deaths. We aren't yet.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/868935/Weekly_national_influenza_report_week_9_2020.pdf

Its possible, China could have suppressed the news on the virus for months.
In Jan i had an awful sore throat followed by a fever of 103 which lasted 24hrs, terrible diarrhea, hacking, slightly productive cough, weak and very tired, ten days later went back to work (feeling ok ish) 3 days after that, i collapsed, phoned GP who advised i came in, SATs low, blood pressure 90/68 (normally 120/84 ish) advised more rest.

Took a further month before i felt ok again.

Note, i had a flu vaccine end of October (self funded), i have one every year and haven't had flu for over 20 years.

There was a really bad flu/cough type virus going around here in November/December. We all had it and were ill for around 6-8 weeks including the time it took for the cough to go away. It was a week of feeling very unwell with fever, chills, aches, headache, runny nose, etc then on around day 2-3 a dry cough. The cough was the worst but and lingered on and on for weeks afterwards. The DC school at one point had an absence rate of 120 pupils out of 190.

I don't know if it was COVID-19, I think it was just a rather nasty winter bug. The GP commented that he had seen a lot of cases and the local A&E was very busy with it, closing their doors to all but serious emergencies at several points. Myself and three of the DC ended up on penicillin for a week each as it led to secondary illness (chest infections), one DC recovered without any, but DH took it hardest with two courses of antibiotics and three courses of steroids. I've never been so ill but we got through it and we recovered which makes me hopeful that the same would be true if we caught COVID-19.

@Jasjas1973 the flu vaccine does not cover all strains though

Actually, drilling through the document I linked to, there is an interesting small climb in ICU admissions.

I’ve been wondering the same thing, several people in my family had something similar in mid-late December. My mum (62) got sick first and then seemed to give it to me (35), my stepdad (70), and my Aunt (55). We were all ill for at least two weeks with a high temperature, sore throats, chesty cough, and aches. At the time I said it felt like a bad version of the flu, but without the nose being bunged up/much sneezing. The flu also felt less likely as we’d all had the flu vaccine (although I do know that is no guarantee).

Although my Mum, Aunt, and I all recovered at home, my stepdad (70) was hospitalised after two weeks as he was getting worse not better. The doctors said it was a lung infection, and after antibiotics and treatment he got better and was released, but he was in there for 11 or 12 days and didn’t have any previous underlying medical problems.

My aunt had pneumonia this January, and many members of my family had a really nasty dry cough that wouldn't be shaken.

I am convinced COVID-19 is everywhere now

Yet another thread to hide.

Why not just add it to one of the dozens of other hysterical threads already running.

Me - fit, healthy 41 year old. Hospitalised for a week with meningitis which they then decided was pneumonia. Out for 2 weeks and still not recovering, now have a chest infection.
Went to see my osteopath (about the same age) who had exactly the same (down to the meningitis / pneumonia ) 6 weeks previously. His friend had had the same 4 weeks before him (he hadn't caught it of him as they had only been in phone contact).
They aren;t the only people similar to me who seem to have got pneumonia this year. I have heard of a few people through friends and family who I don'y have physical contact with who it has happened to.

@AudTheDeepMinded

Of course, i appreciate that.
this years vaccination (according to my GP) is supposed to be 70% effective and should mean even if flu is contracted, it is a milder form.....he was perplexed to what i had,

in all seriousness, i don't believe i had Corona but i do wonder about the timeline of all this, China did suppress the initial outbreak and presumably it would have taken a while to become widespread enough for Chinese Doctors to notice it?

Chest complaints are fairly common in China, particularly in cities and poorer areas. The levels of pollution contribute to hundred of thousands of premature deaths each year, they also have more smokers than any other country in the world, and no real primary health care system either. I think this is maybe why researchers are looking at the months before the outbreak was discovered to see if it has actually been around for longer than first realised.

I had a colleague who was off work for a few weeks with pneumonia just after Christmas. With the rise in awareness of coronavirus and that it manifests as pneumonia, people are diagnosed with pneumonia at the moment and people’s brains automatically link with coronavirus. My dad had pneumonia a few years ago but no big pandemic was on the horizon so nobody linked it with that.

I think that is likely there are people who don’t realise they have coronavirus and numbers higher than recorded. However, there will also be people with pneumonia that aren’t as a result of coronavirus and there will be people with bad coughs that also isn’t coronavirus.

I'm not sure - it could just be a nasty flu season, especially as we aren't seeing lots more deaths than usual.
But I'm also not sure PHE are taking it seriously enough and the NHS certainly aren't testing. I work with international students (including from affected areas) and was in hospital with suspected pneumonia last week (I have underlying conditions and am prone to it). I explained where I work but because I haven't been to China myself they dismissed the possibility, put me in a packed ward and didn't test. From what I'm reading this sounds fairly typical of NHS response so I wouldn't be surprised if it is going round undetected.

I had ghastly flu in early December. Very nasty cough, fever, took ages to go, vomiting too. Of course I didn’t see anyone medical. Now I am terrified of covid19.

You may be on to something here. I work in a school so I am used to the sniffles and bugs however I was struck down by a god awful bug over xmas and have honestly never felt as poorly in my whole life. Tried to put my big girl pants on and be mum for the xmas period but I felt truly dreadful.

I wonder the same, I was ill from new year but had chills over Christmas with cough and sore throat. It seemed to go but I was incredibly tired then it came back or a new virus and I lost my voice, had chills, weakness and tiredness. But continued to go to work as I had no staff. No history of travel or known contact but use bus and underground to go to work

I was really ill in the beginning of January...only symptoms were a fever, so bad I couldn't physically get out of bed, no cold symptoms but a hideous hacking, incessant cough which lasted a couple of weeks.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if many of us have already had it

This thread is full of confirmation bias and anecdotal nonsense.

If you want to understand why you can be confident that Aunt Sue's nasty cough at Christmas was simply a common garden variety of seasonal virus then there are vast amounts of scientific evidence-based information freely available online.

We had around dec 15th.
Dd1 had a fever for a few hours and felt tired for 4 days (4yo). It was extreme tiredness as she wouldnt do xmas show and wanted to come home from nursery on day 4. Then fine the next day.

I’ve thought the same. I had a horrible bug over Christmas - a chesty cough and sore chest which I have never had in my life. Nearly everyone in the family had a version of it.

Round my way (west of Ireland) up to 50% of children in local schools were off sick. (different schools). A friend about an hour away said the same was happening where she was.

And I know people who are still going around coughing and saying they have had it for weeks.

I had a cold but think it turned into a virus temperature shivery etc and a cough that just won't go . It's a mucus cough and doctor has said it's bronchitis. I'm getting better but slowly it's lasted a couple if months . I know of a couple of relatives who had similar symptoms but none of my colleagues. I have had lots of hope it's not corona jokes. I've not been in contact with anyone that I no of .

We all had a horrible cold with fever and cough in January. DD at uni had tonsillitis twice. Normally we don’t get colds.