It MIGHT have been here before Feb/March

[Whattodowhattodooo]

Just seen this tweet.

**A French Doctor has claimed that the virus was in France in December, a month before the first confirmed case.

Dr Cohen tested old blood samples for patients with respiratory symptoms and found a positive result.

This is worth investigating - it could be significant. - Prof Karol Sikora

Whilst it's France and not UK, I think the possibility should be investigated over here too. I am 99% sure my Dad had it beginning of January.

I and my colleagues work all over central London, in very busy locations full of people and tourists. Until recently I travelled regularly on packed tubes and buses. I don't know anyone in London who had Covid19 before late Feb/March. None of my colleagues did or knew anyone who did. However I've known several people unwell since then.

It seems now that a lot of people who had a day trip to London in the winter months are convinced they caught Covid. It just isn't possible.

How do you explain the positive results from December that were found in France, Tfoot75?

Is it so hard to belive that it mutated? Spanish flu did. Coronaviruses are known for mutating and becoming more deadly

It’s not so hard to believe, but there’s non evidence that I’ve seen that suggests there was a mild version and a killer. Yes there are very slightly different strains, but the differences are tiny and there are no discernible differences in their lethality.

Besides, if it has mutated into a different more deadly Coronavirus, it would essentially be a different disease! I’m which case, Coronavirus was here last June and I know I had it!... (I had a common cold.)

My brother is convinced he had it in mid January. He's never been as ill in his life and his doctor couldn't identify what it was. As soon as he heard about COVID-19 he read up on the symptoms and said he ticked every box. Bizarrely though, we had a big family gathering when he first had (fairly mild, cold-like) symptoms and he didn't appear to pass it on to anybody else - unless we were all asymptomatic.

I find it fascinating, the anger of those insisting that it wasn't possible that the virus was here sooner. Anger. Indignation. Foot stamping. Screaming "SCIENCE!", when developing theories for testing is the very basis of science - and this is a theory presently being investigated by actual scientists.

Very 16th Century "THE EARTH IS FLAT, NOW DIE!". 🤔

The suggestion is that we may have herd immunity in some parts of the country e.g. SW, perhaps explaining the low apparent rate of infection there right now.

What nonsense.... How come 99% of the people of the SW magically unaffected by the disease! How are the people there different to NYC and Bergamo?

If it was in France in December then it could well have been here.

This virus has a long incubation period, many people don’t have symptoms or have a mild illness. We were in the middle of flu season. It takes about 6 weeks from infection to death. So for the first few weeks it could well have been spreading without anyone noticing,

You don’t go from one case to thousands dying in a couple of weeks. They didn’t in Wuhan.

Plenty of posters are calmly saying that it’s unlikely.

I would really love covid being here much longer to be true, and for my loved ones to have had it and come through it fine. There are plenty of psychological reasons to wish for this. But unless/until there is evidence otherwise, it seems unlikely.

I will buy a test when they become available.
My close friend is a Gp. I’ve asked her if she thinks I could have had it over New Year.
I wasn’t well and it was different to other previous illnesses I’d had.

She said no because it would have spread.

But, she isn’t a scientist and also thinks CV is of no risk to pregnant women so I take what she says with a pinch of salt.

She also has no time to read up because she is so busy.

So we now know for a fact it was floating around Paris over Christmas. Paris is the number one tourist destination in Europe and many of the tourists come from China so this could make sense.

If that's true then either a) the early people who got it in Paris were socially distanced from others and so didn't really spread it or b) the infection rate of this disease is lower than we think and the curve is flatter than we think. I think a) is highly unlikely as Paris is incredibly busy and the person who has tested positive from December had a member of this household working in hospitality (i.e. interacting with lots of people).

So surely this means we have to refactor all of our infection rate curves to be a lot longer and flatter. This may also explain why some doctors (I know one working in ICU) are saying the "tidal wave of patients" they were told to expect was never as big as they thought it would be.

My family were all struck down with a virus early/mid December. Not sure it that would be too early based on this research but I honestly have never felt so ill in my life. Dry cough, temperature. And it affected us all quite differently. Dc were sick and lethargic, I was coughing and dp was feverish and achey. Who knows.

I was really ill last Nov with a chest infection that needed several rounds of antibiotics to shift. I looked awful and felt it too. Three weeks ago DH (most likely) had covid 19 and I looked after him albeit taking precautions and fully expecting to catch it. I didn't catch it from him which has made me wonder whether what I had before was a chest infection or not.

Yes January I had high temp, deep chesty cough, after 2 weeks went doctors as felt so rough. Doc said might be tonsillitis but not too sure as no white spots. When I got home I thought strange how she didn't know what it was. Cough went on another 4 weeks after that, into February

My mum aged 82 was very very ill over Christmas .She has still not fully recovered .She said that she thought she was dying.

Maybe this what we are going through now is the second wave.

If you think corona virus feels like flu then you haven't had corona virus. It's like nothing I've ever experienced

😂 Ah, a new take on “you’ve not had flu, you’ve had a cold. Believe me, you never forget having flu.”

In January my grandmother died having been in hospital then showing symptoms but they couldn’t find what the infection was. She was very elderly so maybe nothing. However in January at least five other people we know died suddenly with similar illnesses. I’ve never had that many people I know die my entire life then it all happened in Jan / Feb.

Evidence from app is showing it was spreading in January

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8258291/Tracker-app-shows-coronavirus-spreading-UK-weeks-case-spotted.html

So surely if this virus was spreading at least a month before we originally thought then that's amazing news? Because it means it's either much less infectious than we thought or loads of people have had it (without realising) and now recovered.

@Tfoot75 so how do you explain the report from France? The man that had it in Dec hadn't travelled anywhere. Viruses mutate. Cases get worse and deaths increase as it spreads...why is it illogical that it spread from January but not a month or two earlier? How many deaths were classed as flu? Or respiratory?

I live in Devon. Loads of people here were ill in January and Feb. Including me and dp.

This could be why numbers in devon have been so low as its already hit us. As it wasnt recognised at the time its likely any deaths were just put down as pneumonia, or due to underlying conditions.

So surely if this virus was spreading at least a month before we originally thought then that's amazing news? Because it means it's either much less infectious than we thought or loads of people have had it (without realising) and now recovered.

If it wasn’t for places like NYC and Bergamo that have irrefutably demonstrated the impact of significant community infection, I’d hold out some
hope too. In Bergamo there have been 6,000 Covid deaths since the start of March out of a population of 1.1m. Antibody tests have indicated 35% of the population have had it. Even if that was wrong, and Bergamo had full herd immunity (very unlikely indeed as lockdown occurred whilst cases were still sharply increasing and if approaching herd immunity there would have been a prolonged slowdown in infection), that’s a death rate of 0.6%....

If Covid was widespread since December (rather than the odd case), how are we so different to Bergamo? (Scaling Bergamo’s deaths up to UK population gives 350-400,000 deaths). You can do something similar with NYC.

Unless we in the UK are somehow remarkably innately immune, it’s not been widely circulating since the start of the year.... here - quite possibly yes; here in significant numbers - no.

The R0 is an average.... it will differ dramatically on an individual depending on the extent to which you shed virus and how much social contact you have. Some people will infect dozens, some no one. Individual differences could account for its relatively slow spread when in a small population of infected if, say, 5% do 95% of the spreading. That’s just my theory on how it could have been here in December but it take a while to take off.

@DartmoorChef

There’s no reason why Devon would be very different to Bergamo in terms of Covid’s effects. If Devon had been widely impacted by Covid like Bergamo, it would have had (based on comparing the population) 4,500 deaths. The whole of SW England - whose population is 7 times larger than Devon - has “only” had 3,300 deaths.

They had the flu, like 100,000s of Brits do every year!

And those deaths occurred from March/April... There was no “death spike” in Devon in January according to the ONS.

Right, so one person in France = most of the population have already had it but not had to be hospitalised, and the entire characteristics of the disease and the way it affects populations has completely changed?

Hmm, no, this is either an isolated case or fake news, and most of the population had some form of respiratory virus over winter consistent with every winter ever.

I’m 99% sure I had it mid feb. It was awful. Flu like symptoms, a cough that lasted for 3 weeks, really painful chest, fever and then headache lasting 10 days.