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.

Mine were all unwell yes but I was the worst.

Yes my close family all had it and a few friends had it at a similar time. I remember a lot of people coughing in January (I was too) compared to recent weeks.

If it spreads so easily through close contact and surface contamination were all of your families and colleagues also ill

I’m not sure who you’re asking but you do know approx fifty percent of people who get it have no symptoms, right? . Why would all of their families and colleagues be ill? And eighty percent of people don’t need hospitalisation. So the thirty percent in there have varying degrees of symptoms and it lasts a max of a week?

And depending on the demographic it can be much lower or higher than that? Like primary school kids mostly have no symptoms and potentially don’t really spread it and their parents are of an age primarily where they do not really suffer, with large swathes of them not impacted at all?

I work in a paediatric hospital and we had an outbreak of whooping cough among staff in November, presumably initially caught from a patient. Several staff tested positive but normally wouldn't have gone to GP, and if they did, wouldn't have been offered/ asked for the test, but because we knew that someone had been symptomatic at work before her positive test, we were advised to seek medical attention if we developed the symptoms. The cough lasts for weeks.
The OP mentions testing blood samples - current testing is nose/ throat swabs plus lung fluids from ICU patients so not sure what blood tests would show (disclaimer: not a virologist just wondering)

I think I had it on January, lots of people at my work off ill too with a weird type of flu

Between the middle of January until the end of February nearly 1/3 of the work force (office staff and production workers) in the factory where I work were off with what some described as "the bug from hell". 3 people ended up in the ICU on ventilation as their breathing was so bad. All of them had the annual flu jab offered by our employer. The factory is not far from Bristol and the West Country has seen the lowest number of deaths and confirmed cases of C-19 in the country.May be a coincidence or it may not, we'll never know for sure.

Will we know if we have the antibodies test?

@SarahTancredi

I think a number of those recorded flu could turn out to be Covid. Especially considering the numbers transferred to HDU's. Thing was they weren't looking for it then.... Or maybe they were but thinking herd immunity and then it all kicked off and they went: "Oh Shit!"

But that's veering into conspiracy territory!

Also as my mum and dad are high risk they both had flu jab.

Now I know that flu jabs can fail (as has been demonstrated in the past), and could be a pure coincidence?? 🤔

Considering it had spread globally by the 19th January, of course, it was here before the government decided to wake up.

@MrsOrMiss did he keep any screenshots or anything of the data? Be really interesting if he did!!

DH had something mid Feb that you would now assume to be Covid, down to the loss of taste and blood shot eyes. DC was off nursery for a week too but less impacted. PIL who are on the shielding list also caught it and therefore in theory probably shouldnt have made it but did with a lot of rest and oxygen.

I had something weird at the end of November. A week after after visiting harry potter studios, a huge international attraction.
Cough, chesty, temp, aches etc, that lasted a week then flared up again. Lips lost some colour one day and I was going to make a GP apt but perked up after that. I am very fit though.

When I posted this about MIL who was intubated in Intensive care before Christmas, I was roundly told by several posters no way could that have been Coronavirus. We remain convinced that it was. She matched all the symptoms and we nearly lost her, they couldn't say exactly what it was other than a very nasty virus.

@QuitMoaning
I had it.
It wasn't possible to remain fully isolated from everyone when it took me down. No-one else got it. Nor did anyone I had direct contact with beforehand. I knew before I had the test I had it, this is something different to anything else.

I've previously been hospitalised from flu, pneumonia, chest infections etc. But this, I really did think my number was up even in the very early days. How it burns the throat and lungs, it's almost like a "chemical' burn.

With no lockdown cases double every 2 days.

I too had an awful flu in December/January which really affected my breathing, I don't think it was Covid 19, I've had equally bad at least once before.

@Sheeeeesh

I think now certain information is coming to light I think you might find opinions are changing. I hope you MIL is OK now x

@BikeRunSki
America were also temp testing airline passengers at the beginning of January. Whilst here they clearly enjoyed the New Year festivities way too much

@donquixotedelamancha

What we don't know is how many of those that MAY have been infected at the time were mild symptoms/asymptomatic cases. As we didn't know back then we were just walking around spreading. This could account for the higher flu numbers and transfers to HDU's etc as mentioned by PP.

I was in the Alps over Christmas and first weeks of Jan

Became ill late January and had a test from the doctors because was very ill. Came back clear for rotavirus, norovirus, parasites, bacterial infections - everything!

When I took the call which said "you are clear" I was astounded. I was clearly ill, and it took a good 6 weeks to properly recover.

I also believe it was here earlier. I wonder if it was a more mild type that mutated around February/March.

A school local to me closed early for Christmas due to a vicious virus that had been circulating around the school

It will have been mutating as it spread. So the current strain will be different from what was spread globally by January 19th.

Naive to think that it wasn't here then. It was in America. It was in France. We are in the middle lol.

I've mentioned this on here before but DH works in funeral care and mentioned to me that he seemed to be getting a increased number of pneumonia deaths that didnt fit the typical 'winter death' profile (very elderly mainly) but nobody was looking for it at the time so who knows.

Our whole family had a virus in early Feb that absolutely would be suspected covid now. The cough was so violent I vomited on myself where I sat one evening. We were all incredibly ill.

I also had the flu jab in October (was the quadruple vaccine) and had no nasal symptoms when I was ill at Christmas.

I didn't really have much of a cough though interestingly when I got better I coughed up a huge handful of brown thick phlegm one day - was really weird. I had fever, tickly throat and utter exhaustion and sweats for 3 weeks and no taste/smell.

So how many people did you all pass this illness to?

I know of at least four in my workplace that had the same symptoms as me. One was as unwell as we were and she was hospitalised due her asthma being uncontrolled.

Dh's work place also had quite a few off with it too.

When my ds saw me whilst I was recovering, he couldn't believe the cough and breathlessness I had. Also those at work urged me to go home sick for ages after I had recovered because I was fairly useless in a work capacity.

@Whattodowhattodooo thank you she is right as rain, amazingly given she's an 83 yr old with existing lung condition, we were very lucky. I think you are right as new evidence comes to light we will find more and more cases which were probably Covid before we really knew what we were dealing with.
Thank you for starting this thread.