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 had a mystery virus in December around 17th-Christmas. I had a really high fever but forced myself up for one day to be able to visit Santa with my son. No one in my family caught whatever I had. The day I got up I was sick 3-4 times and felt dizziness and very faint. I just assumed it would get better which it did in time but I didn’t help myself as much as I could have done I went out shopping a couple of days later still feeling crap. My mum also didn’t catch whatever it was. I didn’t have breathing problems as such but I had a bad cough. I hope it was it but I’m not convinced Since no one else got it. Where are the antibody tests ???

A new antibody study in Italy suggests it's been around since October and 35% have been infected - reckon you'd probably see similar numbers in the UK. Posters who think they had it in Nov / Dec / Jan could be right

www.occhionotizie.it/coronavirus-italia-ottobre-studio-meleam

I can only hope I’ve already had it but we need antibody tests . Where are they

DD was really unwell at the beginning of January with a respiratory infection. It took her weeks to feel properly herself. But it seems strange that none of the rest of us were ill at all, including my DM who stayed with us to look after her while I had to go to work. Maybe there was another, less-contagious strain around earlier on? As others have said, we won't know unless they decide to do antibody tests.

There could be. Just hope the vaccine is ready for September 🤞🏻

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52589449
Some of you might be interested in this, apologies if you've already seen it, haven't read the whole thread yet.

We went to the Tutankhamen exhibit in December, and were both feeling slightly rubbish by Christmas then it came and went in waves where we were wiped out at the beginning of February, all similar symptoms with the weird hacking cough. I didn’t feel properly well again until March.

Oh yes I was at the Tutenkhamon exhibition , the queuing and ridiculous levels crowding inside would be a breading fest

I was 20 weeks pregnant and suffered terribly after that with sever headaches , exhaustion and sore throats

I contacted midwife as I was so worried that the illness was worse than anything else I had that thought it may have affected baby but they told me not to be so silly

I give birth in 2 weeks so hoping all is ok

My parents fell ill after me with my mum getting pneumonia and then a friend I met at the same time had pneumonia

DH became very ill too but with different symptoms and didn’t have the sore throat but had a tight chest for 4 weeks

DH got ill skiing in February. France not Italy but only 30 km away from a resort where a confirmed case was declared whilst we were there. We went through Geneva airport at the same time (Geneva being a massive airport though so incredibly small chance of coming into contact - unless it was more widespread than was thought).

We’ll never know it was Covid or a different flu type illness, but he’s never has anything like it before. It was the exact symptoms - starting with a raging temperature and with several weeks of breathlessness post the main flu type symptoms. No sneezing and a slightly odd cough.

We’ll never know! He kept away from everyone though as he said he didn’t want to give it to anyone (we thought it was normal flu but that’s not nice to give anyone either).

He contacted the nhs and they weren’t concerned as we’d been skiing in France not Italy, but if it was more widespread than thought I do wonder if it was Covid.

Reading with interest as I'm also in the West Country and have been saying for months that it went through my office and where I live just after Christmas and was put down to "a nasty bug". I have had flu - proper flu - once in 47 years and it wasn't that. I vividly remember the day I actually felt "well", was able to walk round a supermarket without stopping for breath, and it was January 23rd. Still having mild intermittent chest pains now in May.

@HalfPastThree

In thought that figure of 35% was from Bergamo - the epicentre in Italy.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2020/04/28/coronavirus-more-than-a-third-of-people-in-italy-s-covid-19-epicentre-estimated-to-have-ha

If so, that’s not much comfort as 6,000 out of their 1.1m population had Covid-related deaths.

I had a flu type thing in mid December. Temperature, horrible dry cough where I couldn’t catch my breath and it made me sick a few times, absolutely drained of energy to the point where I nearly passed out going downstairs to answer the door. It also came and went, so I was ill for a few days, it went away a bit, then came back again with a vengeance, I remember commenting on how odd it was at the time. I have no idea if it was Covid or not. DS was ill for a day then got better.

Bergamo has a 500% increase in deaths from all causes compared to previous years for that period,
whereas London only had 150% increase

So I wouldn't expect London to be anywhere near Bergamo's infection rate

Also, London had by far the highest UK % death increase; all other Uk regions were well below 100%

We need nationwide blood sampling and antibody tests though, or we're all just speculating

@HalfPastThree
Sorry, different tests... Big differences though between them. The key for me is a sentence near the end: “The virus, also circulating in the South, found the ideal climate in the North, and it was there that it changed to become more aggressive.”

If the virus mutated in the North (as it can’t have been the same as it wouldn’t have devastated Lombardy but been relatively innocuous in, say, Naples, which seems to be accepted as obvious by the authors), does having had the pre-mutation virus (if that’s what it was) give immunity to the post-mutation virus. If it’s like flu, quite possibly not which is why people keep catching it each year, which makes all the claims of Covid being here in October pointless, and potentially dangerous if people believe they are protected as a result of having it.

I should caveat the above by saying that the idea there was a milder version here from October is a mere hypothesis at this stage. It’s not something with widespread support in the scientific community.

To emphasise my point, it would be like saying in 1916 “I’ve had Spanish Flu - it doesn’t seem to be as bad as everyone’s making out”... when actually I’ve simply had a flu that mutated into the Spanish flu at a later point. Again, all this is based on the speculative hypothesis Covid was here in October and then mutated.

There may have been an earlier wave, but so far the evidence is only of a few isolated v early cases
This may change if epidemiologists do a lot more detailled back studies

If so many young / middle-aged MNers were noticeably ill with COVID, surely we should have seen some increase in deaths of the elderly ?

The continuing care home deaths over recent weeks show how difficult it is to protect the elderly even when actively trying to do so
and how vulnerable they are to COVID

What I noticed is that mid-April, after China suddenly announced
an extra 1,290 COVID deaths in Wuhan,

immediately the Wuhan curve of deaths is similar to London 🤔
The FT graph is offset to start at the 10th death

The China curve then becomes similar to Germany

We keep thinking of the Wuhan epidemic December - January as being so much lighter than what we have in Europe,
but they look v similar now that we have the revised Wuhan deaths
(and several Western governments now suspect they are covering up a lot more deaths)

It probably was here much earlier.

Chinese held novel coronavirus drill in September. In Wuhan.

www.express.co.uk/news/world/1279838/china-coronavirus-news-covid-19-wuhan-military-world-games-uk-french-scientific-study

Wuhan military games - many very ill.

www.express.co.uk/news/world/1279838/china-coronavirus-news-covid-19-wuhan-military-world-games-uk-french-scientific-study

Xi Jinping allegedly asked WHO to delay announcing pandemic.

www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12330892

HalfPastThree

Thanks for that - I think that bears out what many of us have been saying re: being quite unwell last Autumn. I'm in the SW, like many others with the same observation.

Wouldn't be surprised if A strain affords some protection against C - hopefully scientists will look into this.

The high death rates in Bergamo vs London could be explained by many things, age of population and/or initial strain (if we were swept by A strain first, for example, whereas Bergamo's predominant initial strain could have been C.

We'll know soon enough I expect.

So the virus mutated from September (mild) to December (like London / Germany) ?

The high death rate in Bergamo might be because the Italian authorities delayed so log recognising it, and organising themselves to treat it - as it was so new to them

The death rate in Southern Italy is much less

These âre the FT graphs of all deaths in Italy at region level, sorted north to south:

Lombardy was hit very hard, and two other northern regions saw excess deaths of 50% or more

"Wouldn't be surprised if A strain affords some protection against C - hopefully scientists will look into this"

Then why don't we see a much lower UK death toll - and also falling new cases ?

Even normalising wrt population, the Uk has 4th highest death toll in Europe

• after Belgium, Italy, Spain -

and the UK daily new cases are more of a plateau, only falling v slowly compared to the fall in other countries

e.g. this is daily cases for Uk, Italy, Germany, but other European countries also show a sharper decline

Did other countries have more cases of the milder version last year ?

So there's an observation that severe Covid cases mainly occur in patients with low vitamin D levels. Tie that in with the Italian antibody study's observation that under 30s have had it much more and it's been widespread since October. Here's what you get:

Early pandemic October - January. Mainly circulating among the young. Rarely hospitalised and only small numbers of elderly / vulnerable dying so it doesn't get noticed. "Just a virus"

After Christmas it starts to circulate more among the elderly, at the same time as the seasonal vitamin D levels bottom out in Lombardy, so suddenly far more hospitalisations and deaths - and spreads faster. This is January / February, when they're looking for Covid and can test. Case numbers increasing fast. High fatality rate. Looks like the start of a severe pandemic, but could plausibly be the endgame of a milder pandemic.

The Telegraph is reporting this:

^US and British intelligence agencies are reportedly examining mobile phone data suggesting there could have been an emergency shutdown in October at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to a report, obtained by NBC News, there was no mobile phone activity in a high-security part of the Chinese laboratory complex from Oct 7 to Oct 24. Previously, there had been consistent use of mobile phones.
The report, carried out by private experts, suggested there may have been a "hazardous event," specifically at the institute's National Biosafety Laboratory, between Oct 6 and Oct 11^