I don't believe that COVID only arrived in the Uk in February

[GlitterToast]

I remember in February (I think) when the apparent first case of corona came to the UK, and there was much talk of a "superspreader".

However, I am convinced that if the virus has been evident in China since November, then it would have arrived here much sooner.

Personally, I was horrendously ill in late January. Everyone told me that I had a bad cold, but it was honestly the worst cold I have ever had in my entire life. I kept having hot and cold flushes and I had an awful cough. I couldn't get out of bed for a week. I'm not saying that I had corona, but I had something awful.

[Keepdistance]

Im sure other countries are using antibody tests.
But anyway how are uk gov testing the tests?

I do thnk it's likely it was here earlier.
Certainly minimum a lot of cases in jan when students would have returned here from china.
Also it was spreading in italy and a few other countries.
It seems to take a few months to peak.
But possibly at peak - considering viral load when all the asymptomatic people are walking around spreading it, the people who havent had it yet are often getting a really big dose.
Now if it takes weeks to stop shedding the virus, then they are all shedding together.. So bus drives and drs get a big dose.
If we assume that rather than 60k? Cases there are now millions of us that have had it then it is now all in the environment. All over buses and public transport.
And they have now found some people who either caught it again or reactivated so imagine all them wandering about. (Although i dont see how china wouldnt have seen an issue with this too now reopened as those people could be infectious again?) though they are wearing face masks.

However you would have expected bus drivers etc and drs to have already caught it?

Anyway of uk family 6/8 of us got something nov/dec. I felt rough for xmas very tired. Dd2 had a fever and lethargy and dd1 was ok.
Interestingly our area doesnt seem to be being badly hit.
I think it's possible maybe to get reinfected.

With why were there not a huge spike in deaths - there was a little. But if 80% are mild then you probably wouldnt hear of the person who got very ill with it.


Now the countries with fewer deaths - have they already had the virus and the other strain is giving some protection.
Nz and aus are low and they probably have stopovers in Asia.

The uk did sentinel testing but didnt tell the results...
Also it's going to take a few months for the virus to get into care homes (and it was found in a few in EU?) where it would get lodged there and hospital icu.
Once the icu/nursing homes get more and more people shedding the virus and in hospital where they are intubating them.
If we take the maximum 17days it was found on a surface...

However it seems much more lethal outside china.
Also where did ND get it from unless she travels around by public transport and was it her that gave it to all the others. (It had only been a few weeks so the likelihood should still have been very low.

If people can get ill ater 1 day again as timegoes on that really leaves a lot in the environment. (Probably more so in cities).
Almost makes you think we should close supermarkets for 2 days a week to at least kill off a weeks worth off surfaces/food maybe even 3 days as that is the time on plastic.
Or they could do smaller identical stores with each only open half the week.
Also with china deaths if it actually started sept that would add quite a lot of deaths there too.
Has china not tested people in wuhan for antibodies.

[Keepdistance]

And actually the issue is so many people getting pneumonia at once. At the start it would have bren small numbers and there isnt treatment anyway except o2 or ventilators etc.
Tbh with a 1-5 day incubation+ who is to say uk and europe didnt take it over to italy during skiing season?
It is interesting as the super spreader was in the french alps presumably very close.

As i dont think they exactly sterilised the whole ski slopes.
Apparently viruses do very well in the freezer..

[QueenofSwearing]

People have to remember that saying "oh well how come we only have people dying now then?" This doesn't prove anything.
This is because they didn't start recording these deaths and making that public until they KNEW the coronavirus was a pandemic.
Prior to this people may have had this and potentially died and that wouldn't have been recorded as COVID-19, it would have been recorded as organ failure/cardiac arrest/respiratory failure as a result of a virus, and even then they don't record the virus as part of the death anyway.

So it's very realistic that people were dying prior to this because of COVID-19 but it wasn't recorded as such. People do die of viruses, even the young and healthy ones. It probably didn't look out of the ordinary in December/January, but now that many people are infected you will be seeing many more dying now.

[Sounsociable]

My DM died if an unidentified virus in 2012. The symptoms were a high temp and struggling to breathe. She was incubated in ICU for 2 weeks and never recovered 😢....so who knows...
Coronavirus is a type of virus and I think covid 19 is the strain that's currently taken hold.

[BigChocFrenzy]

That upper limit of 50% in the Oxford study is now thought v unlikely by most experts

Government adviser Neil Ferguson estimates 3-5 % across the UK

ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/04/04/1586015208000/Imperial-s-Neil-Ferguson---We-don-t-have-a-clear-exit-strategy-/

There was also a study just published by the University of Bonn that tested people in a German town, in an early COVID hotspot

Looking at the numbers currently with the virus and those with antibodies,
they estimated about 15% of that population - in a hotspot - had been infected at some time

https://spectator.us/covid-antibody-test-german-town-shows-15-percent-infection-rate/

[Iamthewombat]

These threads always turn into ‘let me bore on for ages about my symptoms’ and ‘the scientists are wrong. I know better, I’m not a scientist but I still know better’.

[Iamthewombat]

You all know that a high temperature, a cough and difficulty breathing are features common to every respiratory illness, including seasonal flu, right? Why the desperation to argue that the covid 19 virus was endemic in the UK in November, or December or 2012 despite all evidence to the contrary?

That your teenage son had a cough last November is not evidence, by the way.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

QueenofSwearing if people were being admitted to hospital with similar symptoms and going to their gp with similar symptoms it absolutely would have been picked up

Huge amounts of information is added to systems about patients and that is constantly analysed. Meetings take place where medical professionals discuss their cases it would not have gone unnoticed

Unless of course they were all being unprofessional and the systems didn’t recorded all data for December and January

[QueenofSwearing]

What prior to this virus even being announced? I don't think so @EnthusiasmIsDisturbed especially when winter is the season to pick up bugs anyway, you also missed the fact that before COVID-19 deaths weren't recorded based on viruses, they were recorded as organ failure/heart failure/respiratory failure.

Winter is prime season for catching and for people dying, it's not going to look out of the ordinary.

[WotchaTalkinBoutWillis]

A Chinese man who accidentally told the media that China found the first cases back in September has mysteriously disappeared. It's definitely possible that a few people had it earlier than feb in the U.K.

Do you have a link?
Seriously interested in that as I had what I thought was a chest infection back in November. High, dry cough and struggled to walk so much as upstairs and took about an hour for heart rate to slow.
Ended up going for chest x-ray to make sure was OK, also heart got checked as was breathless and pounding.
Never known anything like it, just before it ended a month or so after felt like was underwater and bunged up

[Ifeelinclined]

Waste water is being checked in the US.

I know someone in here (in the US) who caught it on a cruise ship in February. They quarantined him on the ship and didn't know what he had, but he was very sick. After coronavirus was discovered in the US, they tested his blood and it was indeed that. He's now working with university researchers giving blood. So there may be many people who went undiagnosed until we had a test for it. Hopefully antibody tests will confirm who has been exposed.

[DustyMaiden]

@cinammonbuns seriously what? That is a true account of what happened.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

If a patient is admitted to hospital you don’t think the reasons why and their medical history or what lead to the admission is recorded. It’s all analysed

You honestly believe that it would have gone unnoticed a sudden surge in people becoming seriously ill with similar symptoms needing intensive care

Of course it would have looked out of the ordinary as it’s taken into account that the winter months there will be more admissions because of flu or other viruses but far more people have needed to be admitted to ICU, wards in hospitals have been designated to COVID-19 wards because this virus is highly contagious and we have no immunity we would have seen hot spots around the country, we would have seen staff in hospitals coming down with COVID-19, there would have been far more people being reported off sick from work

I’m not sure what you mean that deaths were not recorded by viruses. People are dying because they have contracted COViD-19 that attacks the respiratory system what kills them is pneumonia, organ failure etc

[BigChocFrenzy]

Less than 1% of Austrians infected with coronavirus, study shows
[[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/less-than-1-of-austria-infected-with-coronavirus-new-study-shows
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/less-than-1-of-austria-infected-with-coronavirus-new-study-shows]]

Why should the virus have infected GB early / widely and yet not other European countries ?
A: it didn't

[cinammonbuns]

@DustyMaiden you claim you talked to some Chinese people and then your son got sick later so you believe it must have been coronavirus. Do you understand how completely stupid and ignorant that sounds. Your son had a cold.

[LynetteScavo]

The first known cases in the UK were at the end of January. It would be very naive to believe these were actually the first cases in the UK.

[middleager]

Even in January there were 400 suspected cases here among travellers from Wuhan:

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7953671/Moment-medics-hazmat-suits-enter-York-hotel-two-Chinese-tourists-fell-ill.html

[middleager]

'The Department of Health confirmed it was still trying to contact 438 travellers who have arrived here from Wuhan in the past three weeks. An appeal went out this week urging them to self-isolate for 14 days.'

So that three weeks takes us to the start of the year at least.

[wintertravel1980]

Less than 1% of Austrians infected with coronavirus, study shows

As the article suggests, there is probably a difference between being infected now and having antibodies for the virus.

The University of Bonn study was actually showing similar results. Only 2% of the population in Gangelt were infected at a point in time - however 15% of the people have already developed immunity to the virus. I will not be surprised if the numbers in London turn out to be in the similar ball park.

[hellsbells99]

DH had a very bad chest infection in January requiring 2 lots of antibiotics and 2 lots of steroid tablets. We are hoping he has had it and built up some immunity. He works at an airport so will have been in contact with travellers.

[Hippofrog]

I’m sure a family member had it in late February. He had all the symptoms was poorly for weeks.

[NiceViper]

I was idly wondering, given that amongst the early cases were students, if other international students could have brought it here.

For there are many of them, both those who may have returned to home countries for Xmas, and those returning after a term abroad to complete British courses.

And predominantly mixing with other students in term time (at their own university and wuth others at fixtures etc) means the initial spread would have been in a population.most likely to have it mildly.

Presumably those who model the outbreak would have noticed if the later acceleration fitted the number of currently known early cases, or would be better accounted for if there had been more early cases?

[TheRealHousewife]

Has anyone requested the figures for death rates for December January February for respiratory failure, heart failure, organ failure etc. Then compare with previous years. There lies your answer.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

I know I saw somewhere that the January death figures did go up in comparison to years before.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

If people were being admitted to hospital with similar symptoms and going to their gp with similar symptoms it absolutely would have been picked up

On another thread there was a poster who said their hospital was notified about a disease going around back in December/January time and