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Original poster

It MIGHT have been here before Feb/March

566 replies

Whattodowhattodooo · 04/05/2020 11:32

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.

OP posts:
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BigSandyBalls2015 · 04/05/2020 12:47

I was very unwell from Boxing Day until mid/late Jan with all the symptoms. Ended up going to the GP which I never do and she said she had seen a huge amount of people with a very strange virus over that period.

Unicorn34 · 04/05/2020 12:49

I believe I had it from mid-January. I went on a cruise to Norway at the beginning of Jan, came back to work for a week and then went off with a flu virus for 3 weeks - totally wiped out (slept for 4 days straight at first) and had an x-ray for a cough that just wouldn't go. No blood tests or swabs done as I guess no-one knew about the virus then. Still have a temperature that can go up and down (but I am menopausal too!) and feel lethargic. Would not surprise me at all if I had a test then it would be positive.

Futurenostalgia · 04/05/2020 12:53

Why I asked how did it get here, I know it came from China. I am wondering how I personally got it very early on as I am currently a carer and at home most of the time with very few contacts.

When I was working, I would have been mixing with hundreds of people a day including university students and the risk would have been obvious then.

MrsOrMiss · 04/05/2020 12:54

My DH and I were hit by an awful virus with the same symptoms as Covid at the end of February. I even wrote my will I was so ill. It's taken weeks to feel normal ish.

My DH loves statistics and numbers, just after we were sick, he started keeping track of various country's death statistics. The U.K. had a 4,000 spike in January. Oddly, those numbers have been 'adjusted' several times the past few weeks. Adjusted DOWN.
He no longer trusts any Governments statistics.

Monkeymilkshake · 04/05/2020 12:59

Same. Pretty sure i had it over christmas: fever, dry cough, stayed in bed for days. When i went to the doctors (i was pregnant, so worried about the baby), she told me there was a really bad cold going round this year and sent me home. Took 3 weeks to recover. I've never had a "cold" like that before.

coronade · 04/05/2020 13:01

They said on GMB this morning that they’ve finally got an antibody test that is 99.8% accurate. Can detect antibodies from 14 days after you’ve had the virus. Think it’s a bit like a pregnancy test stick but with a drop of blood so the results are shown in about 20 minutes. They said they should be able to do several 100,000 a week.

LeaveItBarbara · 04/05/2020 13:08

I'd be really interested in having an antibody test. My DF died in late February from something that looks very like Covid-19 now - fever, breathlesness, cough, lung problems, exhaustion - but was diagnosed as 'old person with something going round' at the time.

MzHz · 04/05/2020 13:09

OH senior doctor friend says it’s been here since November

We’ve certainly had an illness that were identical to the symptoms she described when she said she’d had it.

The more symptoms are revealed, the more they confirm our suspicions.

The most recent for me being Happy or Silent Hypoxia. In Jan/Feb while training, my lips were turning blue, My body wouldn’t work properly and it was awful. I ended up on 2 inhalers, with pretty poor flow measurements at times. Few weeks of this and suddenly it lifted. I haven’t used inhalers since the beginning of lockdown

It’s worth remembering that the virus is asymptomatic for a huge number of people- somewhere I think I saw it was up to 50% of people contract it but feel no effects, so therefore there will be another large chunk of people who suffer mild symptoms and a minority of people who go on to have more severe outcomes.

The government have wound society up to be mortally terrified of the virus, when it’s simply not like that for a the majority of those who comes into contact with it. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be wary for those who many not be so lucky, but it’s going to be very interesting to see how they convince some of those who are irrationally petrified about it all to go back to work etc.

Once they have tested those in the population at large to see who has had it, I’m convinced they will be very surprised to see quite how many already have had it.

Goawayquickly · 04/05/2020 13:10

I wonder. There were an unusual amount of ‘does anyone else have this terrible cough/cold/bug’ type of posts around Christmas time, it was quite strange. Lots of us on one thread keeping each other company through the night as we couldn’t sleep for the coughing and wheezing.

Thighmageddon · 04/05/2020 13:11

coronade you can buy that antibody test in the US.

As soon as it's available here I'm going to buy it for peace of mind.

Fortyquinn · 04/05/2020 13:12

I'm sure I had it over Christmas too

Itsjustmee · 04/05/2020 13:15

goingoverground
My DH was very ill mid Dec - mid jan
He had to lots of antibiotics
But he was still able to walk the dogs
I came down with two bouts of very sore throats and aching body and took antibiotics for my throat
My dad who is over 70 and spent a lot of time with us during this period had a cough and antibiotics but that was it

Joffrey · 04/05/2020 13:17

Dh, DS and I had something with Covid symptoms mid January/early February. I can't remember when I last felt so ill and dh ended up on antibiotics for a chest infection, he's never had antibiotics in the 16 years I've known him. DS even had the red, weeping eyes that's been reported, he's never had anything like that before.

DS is nearly 4 and it's the first time we were all ill, and we commented at the time that whatever this was was the worst illness DS has had. My mum came to give me a hand while dh was at work (he wasn't ill at that point), and the following week my parents had cold like symptoms, very mild though.

Of course it's all anecdotal.

Thighmageddon · 04/05/2020 13:21

Joffrey I had the red weeping eyes too, they were awful, never had conjunctivitis that badly or with red eyes in my life before and I'm mid 50's.

sanealaddin · 04/05/2020 13:21

I'm not convinced it was here significantly earlier otherwise we would have seen a quicker spread and more people hospitalised. I'm in London and all the people I've known who have had it have been from March onwards. Seasonal flu still exists, and can be very nasty and make people seriously ill. I pay for a flu jab after being hospitalised with flu when I was in my early 20s. It took me 3 months to recover.

Wildernesstips · 04/05/2020 13:23

I’m convinced my DS had it in January. He already had the flu jab so unlikely to be flu. He also had a rash towards the end of the 2 weeks he had it. When I showed him the BBC article on the rash, he confirmed that was exactly what it was like.

WindmillsofmyMind · 04/05/2020 13:26

I’m fairly sure I had it in January as well as my daughters, my best friend and my mother. My mother is working in a nursing home and hasn’t caught it in the last few weeks despite other staff and residents catching it. I had all the typical symptoms as well as viral conjunctivitis. We all had a bad chest and a cough that lasted for weeks. An antibody year would be extremely helpful.

BeyondMyWits · 04/05/2020 13:26

There was flu about... in flu season... it was not a variant in this season's vaccine... it also caused pneumonia... (people I know who were in hospital in January got tested - they had flu)

Herja · 04/05/2020 13:28

Interestingly (for some at the start of the thread), I'm in Bristol. Everyone I know, myself included, ended up with a horrific viral illness, with a terrible dry cough, in the weeks following the return of Bristol Uni after Christmas (I'm a student there, so confident of when it was!).

I'm a mature student, so the people I know are predominantly not other students. It was awful, my lungs are still not better, nor are my grandad's who caught it from us, nor my best friend's. I couldn't breathe properly and had dreadful crushing and stabbing chest pain. My friend still has lung issues she has been seeing a GP about. If I had it again, now, I would be certain it was coronavirus. I think Bristol already had it...

BikeRunSki · 04/05/2020 13:30

I read something recently where scientists in the US were planning to/had done tests on bodies buried in Oct-Dec last year, of people who’d died with “chest virus” type illnesses. I can’t remember where it was I read it.

MadisonAvenue · 04/05/2020 13:32

We had a strange viral thing at the start of February and I clearly remember saying to my husband in early March that it’d been hanging on for 5 weeks.
If I get a cold it’s my nose that causes me problems. I only get a sore throat, and a mild one at that, on rare occasions and sometimes end up with a chesty cough but not enough to cause problems. The last time I had a chest infection was when I was pregnant with my oldest son and that was 24 years ago.

This started with a sore throat which was absolute agony and had me out at a 24hr Tesco looking for something to help it late one night. I lost my voice and had a horrible relentless dry cough. There were times when I had trouble breathing but I had no nasal symptoms which was highly unusual for me. My husband was exactly the same.

Hellenbach · 04/05/2020 13:32

Pretty sure I had it at Christmas. DP's son came back unwell from Nottingham Uni (one of the first deaths in the UK was in Nottingham Hospital). My partner and I caught it and were so unwell.
Cough, temperature, no taste/smell, aches, chest pain, hallucinations at night etc
I went to my GP who gave me antibiotics despite my chest being clear as I was in so much pain.
Our children aged 15 and 12 got the cough and aches.
DS aged 10 had no symptoms at all.

Regarding data, I know a top data analyst has recently been parachuted in to sort out the figures. None of them stand up to scrutiny at present.

kingkuta · 04/05/2020 13:33

I'm completely convinced I had it just before Xmas. Cough followed by a couple of weeks of breathlessness even on no exertion. Absolutely gasping even going up 1 flight of stairs, felt awful. GP completely stumped, BP was sky high, was put on an inhaler to see if that improved things but didnt. Then just resolved itself. Also had the sore eye symptom. I've had the flu twice and it was nothing like that.

Bluntness100 · 04/05/2020 13:34

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

Exactly millions of air passengers annually. British People flying to other countries to visit people or for work, or they flying here. Very easy to fly in with no symptoms or mild ones and infect someone else.

As said, it’s illogical to think it didn’t happen, if it didn’t we would have to be asking why the hell not.

The only reason we see spikes over the last few weeks is it had spread widely.

BeyondMyWits · 04/05/2020 13:39

So how many people did you all pass this illness to? If it spreads so easily through close contact and surface contamination were all of your families and colleagues also ill?