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.

Actually I just looked through my old messages and it was late November, not jan at all. High fever, sore throat, some with abdominal symptoms. Some not. Severe headache and coughing. Almost the whole school was off.

It would be so interesting to know if what we had in late December was CV or not.

DS of school the last week or term. By the saturday before xmas I could barely get a sentence out without coughing (very dry cough) and by the end of dec husband a bit poorly too. None of us had breathing issues but coughs, high temp, feeling grotty.

Cut to beginning of march. Ds and Dh attended an outpatient clinic to get sons cast off . Cue all of us getting similar symptoms, a little bit worse, as we did in December. The newer symptom for me was a bit of occasional burning in the lungs after coughing and occasionally feeling like I was breathing in sand. This symptom carried on for about a week. Also loss of taste (not sure about loss of smell).

The march illness, CV was really starting g to dominate the news but we didn't think that was what we had. However, we have been self comforting now and thinking maybe we did pick up CV (perhaps son got infected at the hospital as he was in closer contact with nurses, and then he infected us. But it was, from reading posts here, what we had was at the mild end of the spectrum.

However, more self comforting to think we picked up the very mild strain in December and that that somehow gave us some protection against the current strain, assuming it is more severe, and assuming c it actually is a different strain.

Santa Clara County, CA – The County of Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner has identified three individuals who died with COVID-19 in Santa Clara County before the COVID-19 associated death on March 9, 2020, originally thought to be the first death associated with COVID-19 in the county.

The Medical Examiner-Coroner performed autopsies on two individuals who died at home on February 6, 2020 and February 17, 2020. Samples from the two individuals were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, the Medical Examiner-Coroner received confirmation from the CDC that tissue samples from both cases are positive for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).

Additionally, the Medical Examiner-Coroner has also confirmed that an individual who died in the county on March 6 died of COVID-19.

These three individuals died at home during a time when very limited testing was available only through the CDC. Testing criteria set by the CDC at the time restricted testing to only individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms. As the Medical Examiner-Coroner continues to carefully investigate deaths throughout the county, we anticipate additional deaths from COVID-19 will be identified.

From:
www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/press-release-04-21-20-early.aspx
Santa Clara County website, 21 April 2020.

More of these going to be happening!

Larry: You fit assumptions to curves.

...whichever set of assumptions you choose, the evolution over time at the start of the epidemic (before herd immunity develops) will look the same...

The only way the OP’s hypothesis can be true is if the disease itself radically changed between December and March, for which there is zero real evidence.

You only have a reliable curve and rational assumptions if you are testing, and nobody was testing back in December. Hubei province had one confirmed case on December 31, 2019. We don't know what the very early progression of the epidemic looked like even in China. We do know that one doctor who tried to raise the alarm was silenced. Nationwide reporting began in China on January 20, 2020.
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0219_article
Useful appendix included.

Meanwhile, testing of samples from Santa Clara County, California, and Paris have shown covid-19 in patients whose illness had been diagnosed as pneumonia back in February and early March, and in the French case, in December.

First confirmed case in Scotland 5 March.

However, there’s an article on BBC Scotland with Monklands hospital saying that they started getting cases in January

It would not surprise me at all if a milder version was circulating way before the death rate started spiking. I’m in inner London and in January my DC’s school was totally wiped out by a virus- almost the whole of year 6 was off at once which has never happened in all the years she’s been at school

My son’s school of 1600 pupils had a quarter of them off with a mysterious virus in January.

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-evolution-idUSKBN22I1E3

Another interesting article

Sorry. This is the title of the Reuter’s article above

New coronavirus spread swiftly around world from late 2019, study finds

Red Herrings.
Eagles flew out of the night.

My DM, DS and exh all the covid symptoms in December. All very ill, all needed antibiotics for pneumonia type breathing problems, and all up to date with the flu jab do it clearly wasn't influenza related. There was also an unusual spike in 'flu type' deaths in late November. This virus has been in the UK a lot longer than they'd have us believe.

I have a friend who was hospitalised last month because of pneumonia. It wasn't Covid19. Other illnesses haven't gone away, not everything is Coronavirus.

@Anniesnotmydaddy have you actually read the thread?

This is a discussion with unfolding news coming out that it might have been here longer than we were led to believe. Lots of us had symptoms earlier and we've been debating the possibility that we could've had it.

We are well aware that other illnesses are still around but thanks anyway for your pearls of wisdom read the thread next time

Lots of Cv tests don't give a positive result when they should..

they are not that reliable.

Anniesnotmydaddy - I take your point that there are still lots of other viruses around. However, I've had various viruses throughout my life. What I had in January was like nothing I've ever had before, with symptoms that kept receding and then flaring up again. Even now one or two linger on slightly and have made me wonder recently if I was coming down with Corona. The thought that I had it in January had crossed my mind several times but I had previously dismissed it as 'too early'. I can't help wondering though.

I have read the thread.

I mentioned my friend because he assumed he had Coronavirus because the symptoms were similar and because it was more serious and debilitating than any flu/cold type illness he'd had before. But it wasn't Coronavirus.

I'm not saying that it wasn't around before, but I would question why if it is so contagious that so few people were hospitalised if it was here as early as some people think it was. I don't know anyone in London who thinks they had it before late Feb/March.

But how can hospitals in Scotland dealing with cases in January fit with the Scottish government’s statement that the first case in Scotland was in March?

And Scotland was behind England I thought so...

Just a thought - maybe less people were dying as they were seen at hospital earlier with their illness and got 02 earlier. But I am aware I dont know the hospital admissions stats but it would be interesting to know if they were up. We know that now, we have to stay at home and manage the disease as much ad we can but in Dec and Jan, maybe people were being admitted and treated for respiratory problems.

On the otherhand, seeing as it is ripping through care homes the past month, I would have thought it would have been prevalent in homes earlier too (staff, visitors, etc bringing it in with them).

It is very comforting to think we might have had it earlier but we are acting as if we haven't

In January my friend and her husband were hospitalised with the same symptoms - they had flu... which led to pneumonia.

They were tested and found to have a strain of Type A flu that was not in this season's vaccine. Lots of people over here in the West of England had this. It was not Covid, unless Covid tests positive as type A influenza.

I became very ill late January after visiting nearby York, where two Chinese visitors were hospitalised. There may have been others who were infected but not so ill as to realise.

I was ill until late March by which time we all knew the symptoms of COVID. What I had experienced was fairly classic but without great breathlessness. I coughed so hard I thought I had cracked a rib one day, not so strange as I have osteoporosis as a result of breast cancer treatment, which had finished just 6 months before. I also take prescribed calcium and vitamin D now. My dh and dd were not ill but probably were more healthy and robust than me.

I have wondered if I may have had it, but I didn’t contact a doctor. I suspect many people could have been ill early in the year but not bothered their gp so would not count in any statistics. I just self medicated and didn’t/couldn’t socialise for over a month.

...seeing as it is ripping through care homes the past month, I would have thought it would have been prevalent in homes earlier too (staff, visitors, etc bringing it in with them).

I am not sure if covid deaths are being accurately recorded in nursing homes even now. It's possible that in the early stages of the pandemic, people who succumbed to pneumonia actually had the virus. If post mortem examination of any tests done on people who died in nursing homes from January on is possible, it might yield results.

It's also possible that the virus affected people who had been traveling and people who had contact with individuals who had traveled first. So therefore people who ski or take a winter break on mainland Europe, people who work with colleagues from mainland Europe or the far east/China, academics and professionals having international conferences, engineers, travel professionals, long distance coach and lorry drivers. Also, people working in the hospitality sector at home, airports, aviation.

It might have taken a little time for the virus to percolate through society from that group to the people who work in care homes and their visitors.

Social and travel habits of individuals in various strata of society can be pieced together to give an idea of how clusters develop.

I think it's been circulating since December. However it's moved amongst the younger, fitter population and only hit the very vulnerable when it became pandemic. I was working through some records at work, I'm nhs. Looking at the very frail, immobile patients who somehow managed to catch it in March. Asking myself how did they get it first? The answer is they didn't.

I have two minds about this. I can see both ways. One, that London was looked into first. But it was Paris that always held the key. “Do not let this fire burn” we were told. It still does.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-ireland-france-first-case-covid-19-varadkar-a9503981.html

(Dr) Leo Varadkar, Irish PM, says the earliest Irish case may well have occurred in December 2019, even though the first confirmed case was in February. This is based on Irish links to France, where a December case has been confirmed retrospectively.

If samples from December can be tested for covid it will be interesting to see what they yield.

My DP thinks he might have had it in the middle of January.