Do we know more than we did a month ago about how long it's been here?

[LaurieFairyCake]

There's been multiple threads on this at the beginning with people thinking they had it and I've seen a few recent articles speculating it's been here since December
in the UK.

Anyone seen anything more definitive?

(I think I caught it Christmas Day)

I work in a hospital lab.
Some of my colleagues were discussing this the other day. We did have a large number of patients with unexplained pneumonia this winter...

My husband was in Singapore in December and came back with a cough, which was bad but didn't totally wipe him out. My daughter got a persistent cough, but seemed to recover quickly.
I got the worst cough ever on Christmas Day. No other symptoms other than breathlessness, no energy and a cough that made me feel like my lungs were on fire. I was in bed for two weeks and it took another week to get my energy back and shake off the cough.

I think we can all agree that people did get ill before Covid?

This theory that we have all had it earlier than it was discovered has been broadly discounted - due the the fact that actually the death rate for flu-like illnesses was actually lower than before.

The idea that soooo many people (its amazing how many people think they had it before the first case in the uk was recorded) shows that it's not possible, the numbers in hospital & the death rate reflects the infection rate (as seen in other countries who do wider testing than the UK does.)

Theres been loads of threads on MN about this, everyone thinks they have had it before - my friend was convinced I had it because I was ill in Jan and I travel a lot and use the tube in London occasionally

@goingoverground for general appointments.

Just to say as well, my diagnosis of pluerisy was just plucked out of the air, they were reluctant to do a chest X-ray as I was young and healthy (they did say in could wait for hours for one if I wanted to but that all it would show was shadows) - I felt a bit fobbed off. I couldn’t say more than one word at a time as I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. The cough was so horrific that I think the pain was from pulling muscles in my chest. I’ll never know. But I’ve never known pain like it and not being able to breathe was horrific.

we'd have had unmistakable deaths much earlier if it was here that early.

My dad and sister are both in Dublin and both had a really bad flu/chest infection around xmas and new year. Both felt better for a bit and then it came back again. My dad had stomach pain too and for the first time in his life he lost his appetite. That scared him as at the age of 80 that had never happened. Even when in intensive care with sepsis a few years ago he was still able to eat.

They were both diagnosed with a chest infection and had antibiotics and recovered.

My dad has wondered if he had Covid 19 but I’m sure it was ‘just’ a regular bad flu which developed into a chest infection.

IF Covid 19 HAD been circulating in the UK and Ireland as far back as December we would have had many more hospital admissions and deaths surely.

So i really think that there were a couple of nasty viruses going around then at a time when these viruses do tend to happen anyway.

Did any of your residents have COVID-19 symptoms after their appointments @Connie222? There was a nasty strain of "flu" going around the Northwick Park area in February that affected people who had had the flu jab.

Given that the first known death from community transmission was 28 February it is not unreasonable to consider that the virus was circulating earlier than thought at first. Brent has one of the highest numbers of confirmed cases, although there are many factors that could be responsible for that (the number of HMOs, number of elderly residents, number of multi-generational households). If the virus were circulating earlier, it would be logical to conclude that Brent is likely to have been one of the first areas to have the virus.

@goingoverground I have no idea. I was signed off sick from mid December until I moved away from area and resigned in feb so I don’t know what happened after I left.

I had a horrible bug in Feb, not long after being in the company of my dad who was coughing constantly, and had been in and out of hospital as he had cancer. I guess it’s just wishful thinking that it was CV, as others have said there would have been more deaths then too. But it was no bug like I have had before, I remember saying that to my husband at the time before CV had even crossed anyone’s mind.

After going through what I did in December, covid frightens the life out of me. I’m pregnant so we are being extra cautious, no one has left the house for four weeks. I honestly couldn’t go through that again or worse. Pain is one thing but not being able to breathe is terrifying.