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.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/us-uk-intelligence-agencies-examining-report-mobile-phone-data/

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

I believe scientists have isolated various strains, but these are very, very similar, and there’s no evidence (at least that I’ve seen) that any of these strains have dramatically impacts on mortality. If there was a “mild” Covid precursor to the current pandemic, it seems to have been thoroughly supplanted by the current more aggressive strains.

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.

Unless Bergamo has a concentration of elderly and those with underlying conditions that is more than 3 times London’s and at least double any other Italian region, and massively more than those in the south, this hypothesis doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

As for “strain C” theory developing in Bergamo, for this to have worked, AND for strain A to provide some immunity from strain C, Bergamo would have had to have largely been isolated from strain A, with that isolation reducing with distance from Bergamo.... and for strain C to have emerged within Bergamo in February and then spread out accordingly, affecting areas in proportion to the number of strain A cases.

For this to happen naturally, it would be a bit like putting dye into a bucket of water and for a clear patch to remain while other parts became coloured. Technically this is possible, but the odds against it happening are trillions-to-one or more.

And there we have it.

Pretty mainstream the old Telegraph and not know for breathless reporting. They must consider this credible to attach their name to it.

Pics exactly what I was thinking.

This is all just so fascinating now in a morbid kind of way.

@HalfPastThree

The idea that the virus can spread very widely amongst a young, fit segment of the population, circulating for months and infecting a very significant proportion of them, but for transmission to the elderly/vulnerable kept very low, simply isn’t plausible... To continue with my previous analogy, it would be like dropping dye into a bucket and for 25% of it to remain clear, or almost clear, whilst it spreads freely elsewhere. It defies basic laws of physics.

As for vitamin D, well that may be have a factor in the dangers posed by Covid, but it’s stretching credulity beyond breaking point to think it’s effects would affect just the region of Lombardy, and so badly compared to elsewhere.

I think there’s a lot of wishful thinking on this thread, but very little basic scientific, still less epidemiological, understanding.

Here is another piece from the Telegraph about the French athlete, who may have contracted it at the Military Games in Wuhan in October.

^the theory the virus was circulating earlier than had been thought came after a French athlete who fell ill after competing in Wuhan in October said she had been told by doctors it was likely that she had caught Covid-19. The claim by Olympic silver-winning pentathlete Elodie Clouvel bolstered theories that coronavirus may have been carried around the world by people who had taken part in an international competition in the Chinese city.
Ms Clouvel, 31, said that she and her 27-year-old boyfriend Valentin Belaud, also a pentathlete, had fallen ill after the Military World Games, held in Wuhan between October 18 and 27 and featuring 9,308 athletes from 109 countries. Other French team members have since spoken to the French press, mainly on condition of anonymity, to say they too had become sick."We all fell ill with the same symptoms," Ms Clouvel, a military police officer, told RTL radio. "We have recently had a contact with the military doctor, who said to us: 'I think you had [it] because there were a lot of people who were ill afterwards'."The French army denies knowledge of anyone contracting the disease during the games.This week, French doctors informed a 43-year old man that a "mystery" disease he contracted on December 27, which left him requiring oxygen, was Covid-19 after testing a frozen swab^

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/08/covid-19-pandemic-may-have-started-october-says-uk-french-study/

In the news today, researchers in France have found Covid dating back to mid November. They are going to examine x-rays from October next.

uk.news.yahoo.com/french-patients-were-sick-covid-091009709.html

Does anyone happen to know the Lombardy excess deaths, YTD?

Apparently Northern Italy is generally hit quite hard by seasonal influenza , and they had a very mild 2018-19 season.

Friend of a friend (or acquaintance’s partner as it’s always friend of a friend!) is ITU consultant down south. There were 4 or 5 cases in ITU end of December that weren’t testing positive to everything they tested for which had them scratching their heads. They are now thinking they may have been Covid.
I have family in Bristol and was very aware whatever it was doing the rounds as they kept on going on about how everyone was really ill with awful cough. That was end of Dec and January.

I think I would be more shocked if it is proved that it wasn't here in 2019 than if it turns out it was.

This is worth a read

"The WHO has urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases, so that the circulation of the virus can be better understood, encouraging doctors to check records for pneumonia cases of unspecified origin in late 2019. Public Health England has also acknowledged that it “cannot exclude the possibility that Covid-19 was in the UK in December or early January”.

That is a pretty big thing for PHE to have written!

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/spate-of-possible-uk-coronavirus-cases-from-2019-come-to-light

Wow. I'm not surprised at the findings, but I am surprised this is being flagged by PHE. Got to be something in it! We need those antibosy tests rolling out pronto. We are we had it in late December. High temps, coughs. We work next to the Chinese students hall of residences. We share the same little shop. Our city has 2 universities...one of which is paired with.....Wuhan. I'd be more surprised if we hadn't had it!

[quote TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair]This is worth a read

"The WHO has urged countries to investigate any other early suspicious cases, so that the circulation of the virus can be better understood, encouraging doctors to check records for pneumonia cases of unspecified origin in late 2019. Public Health England has also acknowledged that it “cannot exclude the possibility that Covid-19 was in the UK in December or early January”.

That is a pretty big thing for PHE to have written!

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/spate-of-possible-uk-coronavirus-cases-from-2019-come-to-light[/quote]
It's a big thing for the WHO and PHE to concede, given that this has long been considered 'fake news'/an object of scorn for the those who 'follow the (carefully curated) science'.

I was going to post a link to the Guardian article, but see that someone has beaten me to it!
I think this confirms it for me - I worked with a lady who was ill after travelling over Christmas. Off work for 6 weeks, various antibiotics, hacking cough, temp, chest infections. Took her over 10 weeks to feel back to normal. She told me last week that when she spoke to her doctor last week, she asked him whether he thought that what she had early in the year could have been Covid19. He said yes, he is 99% sure she had it.

Haven't read the full thread, but there was an article by Fergus Walsh (bbc health correspondent) saying he was gobsmacked to have tested positive for antibodies and had no symptoms. However, he said despite being very healthy, he had been hospitalised with pneumonia earlier in the year. But didn't think he'd "missed the story" being the first Covid case in the U.K. And I thought "hmm, seriously Fergus?"

Loads of people reported on here (all right, quite a few) that they'd had pneumonia last winter. More than I've noticed before. I remember being surprised. Covid had barely been in the news. But I could easily be jumping to conclusions.

Maybe it was doing the rounds as a cold/flu type virus and then mutated in Lombardy late Jan. People getting different strains of it.

I think I had it, mid-late Jan. I live and mix in a university city with loads of students from China. Cough, wheeze, terrible throat/windpipe/neck pain, heartburn, odd symptoms like pins and needles/numbness, blisters inside mouth, the breathlessness kicked in on day 8. If it wasn’t covid it was a damn good impression of it. May also get an antibody test when they are available on the nhs (if I qualify for one).

I keep hoping that they'll discover that the virus appeared back in Aug/Sept 19 when I had the most horrendous unusual (for me) fever/virus/chest infection thing. I would really like that to have been covid19. Am afraid I think that might be pushing it a bit though.

There was certainly another very nasty respiratory bug going round over the winter if it wasn't actually COVID. My friend's son had it and was incredibly poorly when he never normally gets ill. It was the worst cough he'd ever had.

I was very ill with flu in November that I ended up being taken to hospital with heart issues by ambulance. I was off work for 3 weeks. Then got a secondary infection 2 weeks later.

My daughter got seriously ill 2 days before christmas with "flu" as well. She is only 3 and the gp said if she gets worse she will have to be admitted to hospital. Her breathing rate and heart rate were both above normal. She was so breathless it was horrible.

My mum is sure this is what we had then and it just wasn't known about. Until we have an antibody test we will never know, but we can't afford to buy one.

@tobee - I couldn't believe that Fergus didn't question that he might have had Covid. It was as if he had been brainwashed into thinking that it couldn't possibly have been because of the timing. There were no comments on the bbc website but his twitter feed was full of people saying "c'mon Fergus, really?"

I thought Walsh had one of the earlier, unreliable tests?

I had a fatigue, sore throat, high fever, diarrhea, weeks of a dry constant cough, at one stage went blue in the face, very low SATs and very low blood pressure BUT it started in early January, it quickly spread to my DD and partner but they both got milder versions.

Can't have been CV as it was too early but very odd as i always have a flu jab, so wasn't expecting to be quite so poorly.

Walsch has repeatedly tested positive for antibodies on various tests. He’s definitely had it. Blows my mind that he thinks he’s had it 100% asymptomatically in more recent months rather than that the fever and pneumonia he had in early January was it!