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.

[BeyondMyWits]

2 friends - husband and wife - had influenza A in January - same symptoms, led to hospitalisation for pneumonia, were tested and found to be a variant of Flu type A that was not in the season's vaccine. So those who think they had it earlier in the year may be mistaken.

[SarahTancredi]

*dont

If you look at the PHE website you can see that this year in the uk the flu cases were above baseline levels with moderate intensity being the recorded level of icu/hdu admission.

I do think the earlier one was a slightly milder strain and its now mutated at least twice. The first strain being rough but not really fatal. The second being the one that was killing the old people and those nwith underlying conditions and this strain fatal to potentially everyone.

Just a theory though no way of knowing

[Futurenostalgia]

I have been saying this for weeks after a horrible coughing bug that my family suffered after Christmas. There have been lots of threads on it where many people agreed but some pooh-poohed it.

[dancinfeet]

dontdisturbmenow Possibly because not everyone went to the GP? I certainly didn't. I took paracetamol, went to bed and rested and slept propped up with pillows for a couple of weeks. Assumed it was some strange kind of flu (strange because I didn't get the 'cold' type symptoms of sneezing, needing to blow nose etc) and just rode it out. I'm not in any vulnerable categories, so although it was very unpleasant (whatever it was that I had) I didn't get to a stage where I contacted a doctor. If I had thought then that it was possibly covid, I may have done things differently, and telephoned for advice.

[LaurieFairyCake]

Absolutely convinced I caught it Christmas Eve and came down with it Christmas Day

I didn't pass it on to anyone apart from DH as we didn't see anyone for 2 weeks

[Keepdistance]

On the last of these threads someone linked to a n article where a school had to close for an unknown bug, it sounded really odd.

Yes i do mean possibly here before. I think they need to antibody test different populations.
If you look at some countries they are less affected sobif it grts intobcertain areas thry have less of an issue. It must have bubbled in italy for a while and in washington but takes a while to get in care homes.

Then the flights and cruises where say on a flight you get maybe 1-2 people shedding and then not clean a plane so for the next 3-5 days its being spread to everyone.
Surely more flight attendants are now immune

[HarrietOh]

Why wasn't there a huge spike of deaths in December if people had it then?
I had a massively painful cough that strained a rib muscle and high temperature with flu two years ago, was it not flu people have experienced?

[Smileyoriley]

I had the exact text book symptoms late last year-dry cough which I've never had before, temp, complete loss of smell and taste. I think I caught it from someone who was very poorly. My GP said she had seen lots of people with identical symptoms and had just returned to work having had it herself. It may have been another virus but if I had it tomorrow would assume it was COVID.

[Futurenostalgia]

The only thing I can’t work out is how I would have got it. How did it get here in December/January?

[kizkiz]

@SarahTancredi

I think there could be something to what you're saying.
I barely know anyone who didn't get the weird flu like bug over Xmas period. Similar symptoms, but clearly not so deadly.
Coronavirus are known to mutate and its hardly a far cry to think it got more deadly

[HarrietOh]

@dancinfeet when I got flu two years ago I didn't have sneezing/runny nose etc. that's actually not common symptoms with flu! I think because so many people refer to colds as 'flu' when it's not. If you look on NHS website for flu it doesn't list sneezing/runny nose as a symptom.

Flu symptoms come on very quickly and can include:

a sudden fever – a temperature of 38C or above
an aching body
feeling tired or exhausted
a dry cough
a sore throat
a headache
difficulty sleeping
loss of appetite
diarrhoea or tummy pain
feeling sick and being sick

[cuteglasses]

We think my mum had it before Christmas. She was afraid to go to sleep at night in case she didn't wake up. I've never seen her so ill

[SarahTancredi]

The only thing I can’t work out is how I would have got it. How did it get here in December/January?

Product shipping?
Smuggled goods
Illegal entering of country?

How long can it last on surfaces

[Summersunandoranges]

DS had real barking ‘whooping cough’ type cough that went on for weeks

This so did mine to the point I quit work as she was poorly for about 6 weeks before and over Xmas. I just couldn’t send her back in nursery. They eventually said it was possibly whooping cough. Took her ages to get over it. I really do think she had it

[Bluntness100]

Why wasn't there a huge spike of deaths in December if people had it then?

Because some people may have had it, but it wasn’t wide spread. Secondly doctors didn’t know what to look for, and were classifying as pneumonia or respiratory illness, thirdly because it takes a week for symptoms to show, then the second week before you need hospitalisation then up to a month before death. That’s up to six weeks.

As such the first deaths wouldn’t have been till well into January, likely even February and would have been very low, because it wasn’t wide spread.

Logic does state though it it was in Wuhan in November, it was already spreading globally quickly after this.

Do remember eighty percent of people who catch it don’t need hospital treatment, and when a virus hits, it needs to spread, then time for people to get ill. It being in the uk mid to late December would not have resulted in any deaths until late January and into February and would have been low numbers,

[Bluntness100]

How did it get here in December/January?

The same way it got to any other country. People. People flew in. A Chinese National who had it flew to London. Or France, or italy and someone got it and that person then flew to London.

It didn’t come in on goods or anything like that. It came in via people.

[Summersunandoranges]

I’ll add dh had a ‘bad cold’ but his coughing was terrible. He was on his hands and knees at one point. If pot money on it it’s already been in this house

[HarrietOh]

It still doesn't make sense that the deaths only suddenly, quickly started going up in March/April time. They would have noticed this in December and we would see the excess average deaths on ONS surely?

[SarahTancredi]

Again with the PHE records

December 17/18 both had flu at below baseline levels

December 19 suddenly its above baseline levels

[Bluntness100]

It still doesn't make sense that the deaths only suddenly, quickly started going up in March/April time.

Of course it does.

One person comes to the uk with it in dec. gives it to three other people. Who gives it to three others, it takes time for it to spread to the stage deaths quickly jump.

It’s not one person came to the country with it. And infected millions. They infect likely three others, it’s a ramp up.

[SarahTancredi]

harriet

But before then people would have been admitted and treated as they didbt know about it.

Many of the deaths now we know about it have been because they actively decided to leave residents on care homes and they made a fatal error when given the criteria to paramedics to bring patients in. Many died at home unable to access treatment

Without these restrictions people would have been seen by a dr and treated much earlier

[Thighmageddon]

The only thing I can’t work out is how I would have got it. How did it get here in December/January?

We live just outside a city with a huge Volume Chinese tourists and students. Doesn't take much critical thinking to work out how.

And with it being Christmas time, people coming from all over the country to shop and attend Christmas markets.

[80sMum]

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it turns out that the coronavirus was in the UK much earlier than originally reported.

I have often wondered whether the severe cough, high temperature and breathlessness that I had in the first 2 weeks of February could have been Covid 19. It was the only time I have ever taken time off work for "just a cough" but I felt too ill to go in, I was just washed out, partly from being up all night coughing so no sleep.

Two friends (a married couple) then had the same mystery illness about 10 days after me. A couple of their friends (another married couple) then got it about a week later and in early March one of them was getting worse and ended up in hospital on a ventilator, was tested for coronavirus and result was positive.

So, did we all have the same virus, I wonder?

[Bluntness100]

The other thing to note is that we are seeing a spike, in a short period, of deaths, but as Chris witty pointed out, as has nearly every other government, there is an overlap in those deaths of those who died with it v because of it. People who would sadly have died this year anyway due to other chronic illnesses.

We won’t know the true death spike until we see the full year figures, because many who would have died say in September may have died in April instead. The spike is potentially very very low, and Scientists are already saying countries like Italy might see no death spike over the year, because they lose so many elderly people annually and due to respiratory illness due to the poor air quality there. As in they died in a short period, rather than over the year, and the spike is so small so as not to be unusual.

[PleasantVille]

Whoever tweeted that isn't a member on here obviously

There's been a thread about people having the virus pre February on a daily basis on MN for about the past 6 weeks.

Every MNer has either had it or knows someone who did before the world outside China was aware of Covid19, this is very old news.

There's no easy way to search but have a look at the thread titles in the CV topic and you should find thousands of discussion posts. Maybe the WHO scientists should do that actually for their research.