coronavirus do you think it was here in uk in december?

[Whensmydayofftoo]

In mid december my 11 year old ds came down with a fever I remember I couldn't control his temperature with calpol and nurofen which resulted in him going to hospital with a fainting attack he does suffer fainting when temp high. When in hospital I mentioned his croup type cough he developed and the fact hed been in bed for 5 days they couldn't get rid of him quick enough. It was like they knew something and were alarmed. When he was discharged they said to contact anyone who had the same symptoms that hed been in contact with and ask them to keep a good eye on them. He also had the lack of taste and took 3 weeks to recover i came down with similar but less severe. I have since found out half his class had it. So was just wondering could this have been coronavirus thankyou

My son and I had a coughing illness in December he coughed for weeks and weeks afterwards. We were both quite unwell but, it’s December I’m a nurse and I look after kids and babies with bronchiolitus, viral induced wheeze, flu etc our ward is crazy over winter so it’s not uncommon to have flu/respiratory illnesses, doubt we will ever know but I think more information will come out as China hasn’t been upfront

sugarsugarshimmy - which is literally what i posted? we had a flu outbreak this winter. jesus christ what is it with mumsnet

I've reported this thread for deliberate scaremongering. Op, you should be ashamed of yourself.

so many overly sensitive, report happy people on mumsnet. Get a life ...

I wondered the same as me and DP were very poorly over Xmas with cough and temp, will be interested to see when tests come out whether we’ve had it

Mine was diagnosed as walking pneumonia, I got told if I got any worse or if my temperature went up any more to ring 999.

I'm really not sure, but I was really unwell in December whilst on holiday in Germany, and the cough and fatigue didn't go until the New Year. I had the flu jab last year, but put my illness down to a strain of flu not covered by the jab. I'm still about 70% sure that is what it was, but part of me wondered - DS works for an airline and I commute to London for work, and we live in a city with a large Chinese population. I do understand the arguments about why it didn't spread as widely then as it has now if that was the case - the only answer I have is that we know the current pandemic has mutated, maybe what was around before January was a weaker version? Or maybe just the flu. We will probably never know.

Someone I know was very ill in January and February. Several docs, xrays and 5 antibiotics later and still not much improvement.

The most typical course of events leading to someone being on that many different antibiotics involves them being tested and being found positive for a bacterial infection that is best served by using a different set of antibiotics than those initially started. Bacterial pneumonia might result after an initial viral infection, but it’s not the virus that keeps them ill so long. Could have been any viral infection to start with.

I guess we will never know.

I certainly remember being I'll with a persistent cough in December maybe january , Felt really strange. I've had coughs and colds before but I remember having to come home from the school run and strip to my knickers cos clothes hurt so much.

Dd2 has been coughing for weeks and weeks now . Since January. Its never gone away. Shes been checked over by a dr who wasnt worried at the time but said to bring her back if it didbt go away . Course I cant really get to the drs now and I'm.not risking taking an otherwise healthy child to drs not now.

My parents were also I'll around xmas too. They still not quite right. Not dad still has a cough and he remembers losing his taste and smell. Both have had the flu jab so should t have been flu.

We will never know though what it was

I believe deaths in the south west were up dec or jan if any of you are in that area?

We had 'it' mid dec lasting over xmas and then jan i had conjuntivitis.
South west wasnt even on the chart today for cases going up and dropping.
But if it hit here dec then the length of xmas holidays would have flattened any curve.
Maybe this is why the 'think' the antibody tests dont work.
If so though is BJ faking being ill? Or was overconfident yhinking he had had it. There are different strains and you can get them both i think.

SarahTancredi I have same issue with my 4yo. Coughing now since 1st week in march. Normally it starts to get better or i use olbas oil. But this isnt budging

I've said this before on here but my trust are going back though hundreds of blood tests and x-rays as they believe we had this before it was announced.

I'm not sure if it was around then or not. My ds had a severe flu in Dec 2018, he fainted twice with it, was out of school 2 and half weeks. He had me worried sick, with a few doctors visits, as he was only 8 at the time. .... that was the seasonal flu . Most of his class got it too .

So, seasonal flu can be very nasty and worrying, so it's hard to know if what you're describing is a bad seasonal flu or corona .

Carrotcakeforbreakfast
Would you be able to update us when you have more info. I think it's possible it's been circulating in the UK longer than we think so it would be interesting if there was evidence to confirm that (or not). The earliest cases are now thought to have been in November in China although I'm not clear if those cases were covered up or the discovery has been made following a review of patient records looking for cases of pneumonia of unknown origin.

keep

Its strange isn't it.

Her throat was checked , no temp, her chest sounded clear, the dr said herself that her kid had been coughing for weeks as well. It was February half term I took her and she had been coughing nearly a month then. I remember it was just as this came out because it took me nearly 400 calls to get through to the drs.

I first thought she had caught it from me a few weeks prior.

None of us caught anything since so the cough is not a symptom if Am illness currently its left over from if that makes sense.

Shes not asthmatic. Not prone to chest infections etc. Shes rarely ill

I heard that they were expecting quite a nasty strain of flu this year. So I had a flu vaccine because of that. I suspect unless you had close contact with people from China anything caught early would have been from a bad dose of flu. Anything caught now could be flu or Covid.

Either way a bad dose of flu can be horrendous

I had /have regular contact with people from.all over.

Retail
Diverse town.

It is thought it was circulating in China from Novenmber so it is possible it was here in December. It wouldnt have been widespread immediately so no reason to have seen death rates shoot up that quickly. I read somewhere that there was an assumption of 1000 people infected for every death. On the other hand it might have been another virus. Frustrating that testing is still thin on the ground here. If they produce the promised antibody test soon we might be able to draw better conclusions on whether a recent illness was likely to have been the dreaded C!

Possibly for those us living in densely populated areas is that with multiple vectors we can expect transmission to be rapid. Add on top of that, the ease & frequency of long haul transcontinental flights which quicken some vectors. There is a differential also between the occasional long haul flights for leisure & the frequent flyers for the business classes who tend to commute between high density city centres. Then... China’s & other countries engagement with the global business sphere has grown exponentially in the past decade or so.

Introduce a highly contagious novel virus....

FOJN

I can't speak for the rest of the UK but we are looking back as far as the middle of December.
We had many cases of pneumonia in people who you would not expect to have pneumonia.
So much so we tested most of them for HIV as pneumonia isn't a usual presentation of those otherwise young, fit and well.

Staff I've spoke to in ITU believe they had cases in critical care end of December.

I'm not sure how it would work with why we are now seeing this sudden jump but what I do know is healthcare are very suspect of the timeframe we have been given.

Our GP was definitely aware of it in February. I rang him regarding dh's illness on 10th February, and told him he'd returned from Milan on 3rd February. The GP immediately told me to isolate dh, clean all door handles, car steering wheel etc., ask him to avoid communal areas in our home, not let our children near him and for the rest of us to wash our hands as often as possible. Dh had travelled from Puglia (where his parents live) to visit his brother in Milan on 29th January and had mentioned to me on the phone how busy Milan was on the night he arrived with lots of Chinese returning from Chinese new year celebrations, many from Wuhan. I think it's unforgivable that China hadn't closed it's borders by then.

@carrotcakeforbreakfast
my husband was tested for HIV and Tuberculosis, he had severe viral pneumonia and even now, four months later they are still investigating.
it damaged his heart muscle, caused fluid on lungs - he is young, fit and healthy otherwise.
he was in hospital for weeks, they can't seem to work out why he was so ill and the viral screening tests keeps coming back as a virus but they don't know which one.

he is still very sick, he was in isolating the whole time due to to suspected TB.

I have a friend who was given two lumbar punctures and refused a third, for suspected viral meningitis. That came back negative. At a follow up the consultant said it was 'some sort of strange virus', but didn't name it. Friend works in the postal service, so meets a lot of people. He was in hospital in December.
It was a mild winter here, I don't know if that makes a difference in ordinary viruses floating round.