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’m in SE - lots of friends had classic symptoms after Feb half term which means they caught it early Feb. None went away though most work in London. Logical to think it was here in smaller numbers in Feb/ jan if it was spreading to non-travellers then.

It's one person that we know of, there might be many more cases.

Unless we in the UK are somehow remarkably innately immune

It's thought that the Chinese were studying this virus because of it's more severe impact on populations with greater number of ACE2 receptors - e.g. the Chinese. The theory IIRC was that they wanted to develop the means to counter germ war usage against them - but they took little care and the virus was somehow released by themselves, upon themselves (and the world).

Therefore, it's entirely possible that our "White British" population are less susceptible to severe illness, that the emergency and panic in China was genuine and they did indeed sadly lose a lot of people. In the West we have seen our BAME people die at higher rates and, though this is not yet fully investigated, there are concerns around why those populations would be more susceptible. Again, perhaps genetics, perhaps ACE2.

DH is convinced he had it in February. He was very unwell with a "weird virus" the whole month. It felt like flu, he said, with fever, sore throat, clogged up chest (he has asthma) etc.

We had been in contact with someone who works on cruise ships & she was ill around that time too with a "virus".

At the time our GP just put it down to an unknown virus.

I doubt the brits are somehow more resilient - opposite in fact due to obesity etc

Having it here in jan/Dec and then the spread we had back in March seems entirely logical. Gov aren’t saying this as they were completely unprepared. Unis have known about this since Dec due to students/colleagues etc in China and our gov were warned about it in jan as we know, but for whatever reason, didn’t act.

@Moondust001

Brilliant post.

What has been puzzling me is how there are so many deaths in care homes. I am not a scientist, so l may be being particularly ignorant, but surely the residents there mix with far fewer people than most (apart from those in the care home). Possibly only carers and relatives, whereas the rest of us were out shopping, socialising etc. until lockdown. Could it be possible that it was circulating more widely in the general community unnoticed as it didn't cause a huge number of excess deaths- they only started once it spread to those who had been more 'shielded' before? Isn't this idea of spreading in the younger age groups used to explain Germany's lower death rate? But as I have said, I am no scientist, and may quite likely be spouting utter rubbish.

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?

We don't know it was only 1 person in France - we only know that they tested some deaths from December and found coronavirus. There could have been more but we don't know.

Surely if your first recorded death is out by at least one month then that means your entire model of the pandemic is wrong. All the charts we've been looking at are wrong. I don't know exactly what the implications of this are but there must be some serious implications.

If this infection has a very low death rate (and we know that it has) then surely we would only see a spike in deaths once it has really taken hold and infected a lot of people in those at risk categories? May be a stupid question but the reality is this virus is asymptomatic for many.....Especially the young.

@PicsInRed

It seems to impact people of different ethnic background a little differently, but not even remotely as much to make your hypothesis true...

My example was comparing Bergamo to Devon, to counter the idea that it had already swept through the county at the start of the year with very little, if any, impact on deaths. (Deaths were lower than average in January across the UK). Ethnically the typical resident of Bergamo and the typical resident of Devon are very alike.

If this infection has a very low death rate (and we know that it has) then surely we would only see a spike in deaths once it has really taken hold and infected a lot of people in those at risk categories? May be a stupid question but the reality is this virus is asymptomatic for many.....Especially the young.

True, but 99.99% of deaths occurred from mid-March. Even given your point, it’s not consistent with it being widespread before that.

Didn’t it sweep through that part of Italy due to one big event though? A funeral or a wedding? Can’t remember what but lots of Italian kissing and touching.

We now know this virus is spread through pretty close contact for 15 minutes.

In Devon maybe people were just a bit more spread out, I big events where it could spread as much.

It is interesting that it was initially the county with one of the most cases and then it really didn’t pick up... Now it’s one of the areas with the lowest.

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?

Very good point. The fact there appears to have been a case in France in late December raises important questions about the disease, but the wild extrapolation from this one incident is entirely unwarranted when compared to the irrefutable evidence of the death spikes in all affected areas from March.

I don’t think anyone is saying it was widespread in December just that the first few cases could have arrived then..

It takes 6 weeks from infection to death on average so we wouldn’t see a spike in December and January would we?

In Devon maybe people were just a bit more spread out, I big events where it could spread as much.

You’re clutching at straws here. Deaths from Covid in Bergamo have been 10+ times that in Devon per head of population. Their excess deaths were 600% of normal in March. Devon hasn’t seen anything more than a blip in comparison since autumn. If it had been in Devon since December, and infected much of the population, that would register in excess deaths (perhaps 200% higher to account for a “burn”’over a period 3 times longer than Bergamo). There was nothing of the sort.

I’m not really clutching at straws more than discussing a few interesting aspects of the virus and its spread as more info comes out. And I do appreciate both sides of the argument.

I still don’t understand how it could have been in France in December and not made it over here earlier than late Jan. Ditto China in Autumn. There’s lots we don’t know about this virus. The antibody test will be interesting!

Also don’t understand why Devon was such an early hot spot but the virus then didn’t really take hold there?

This is one of those threads that will be so interesting to come back to in a month or more after there's more understanding of CV and it's origins/spread.

Here's some government statistics from the end of December to now.

At the end of December (week 1) you can see a slight rise in pneumonia mentions; then Corona is identified officially and it's replaced by a rise in Corona mentions.

I don’t think anyone is saying it was widespread in December just that the first few cases could have arrived then..

I think that’s exactly what some people are saying... Poster after poster is saying they,
their family, colleagues, friends had flu like symptoms around December (or well before in some cases) and claiming (despite the fact it was the flu season) that it “must have been Covid”.

My post on the absurd and insulting idea that Devon was somehow Britain’s Bergamo, any yet somehow the people of Devon were somehow only mildly affected, was in response to post suggesting it was widespread in the county in December.

Also don’t understand why Devon was such an early hot spot but the virus then didn’t really take hold there?

My theory is that people in Devon took it more seriously and socially distanced earlier because of news that they had more cases, much like they seemed to do in London (whose hospitalisations have come down much faster than elsewhere).... I could be wrong.

If 20-50% are asymptomatic then surely no country ever has a true idea of infection rate and therefor the death rate? But we can conclude that the death rate must be even lower than we are estimating?

Therefore thousands of infections can happen before we see a spike in deaths?

Completely happy to be corrected on that!

Think about it logically - viruses spread like wildfire around Christmas because everyone is at Christmas parties and seeing friends and relatives that they don’t usually see. There is always a spike in norovirus cases in the two weeks either side of Christmas because of this and a spike in flu deaths in January for the same reason.

So if Covid 19 was in the U.K. in December (as widespread as people are suggesting anecdotally here), it would have spread massively over Christmas. As there is a 5-6 week period from infection to death, that would mean that there would be a big death spike starting in early February due to the Christmas cases. This wasn’t the cases and deaths were lower than average at that point. The excess deaths started between the middle and end of March. That suggests that it was only spreading amongst the community from February. Before that, there were probably a few cases, but not enough to be consistent with all the anecdotes in this thread. It is far more likely that those were down to flu. I have had flu a few times and at least two of those occasions were consistent with Covid symptoms...but they can’t have been that because they were in 2000 and 2017.

The people I know who got it in London can all more or less pinpoint where they think they got it because several people were ill afterwards. Two weddings, an 80th birthday party, a ski holiday. All of these mid Feb onwards and early March. All large gatherings with people in close proximity, hugging, sharing food etc.

BBC:France's first known case 'was in December'

that the patient must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear.

They've done two positive tests on thawed samples and found the covid lung pattern in x-rays as well. The paitent hadn't travelled but the thinking is wife who didn't get sick works in supermarket near airport where many go straight from flights from China.

I'm not sure it means it was widly about in general population or if it was in areas near aiports or with populations reguarly flying back and forth to China.

I've read newsreports on the gentic analysis of the virus -
www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins which shows different areas have different predominate versions and Wuhan main version isn't the oldest. So maybe there have been odd infections around before it all took off.

I think we won't know until there is a reliable anti-body test that's widely avaliable when it got here or how wide it's spread since then.