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.

[StillDumDeDumming]

The problem is if you look at the statistics of when we were testing those with symptoms many more people have symptoms but the tests are negative- including my brother who is frontline nhs. He’s been really ill but the tests are negative. So it’s too simplistic to say I had these symptoms I must have had it. We need reliable antibody testing.

[FusionChefGeoff]

If that is the case, why wasn't the NHS inundated with 'unexplained' flu deaths in Feb??

If the virus was introduced in Dec / Jan, the exponential infection curve would have started then. The vulnerabilities would be the same and the rate of infection / death would have been the same.

Therefore there would have been thousands of deaths....

[SarahTancredi]

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

My parents as previously mentioned and all my colleagues had stuff going on as well. Chest infections / days off for sickness

[PicsInRed]

I think they need to check in bristol area. As the infection rate is much lower here

Lot of really nasty coughing in Bristol last Autumn.

[BakedCam]

Really interesting responses and particularly surrounding universities. Certainly international students returning after Christmas.

[SarahTancredi]

Therefore there would have been thousands of deaths

As I said before. As soon as they knew about it and went into lock down the immediate thing was to aciud hospital admission. Thousands have died because they were refused access to hospital. And left to die in their care homes . Paramedics had to be re issued with guidance becuase the point they admitted patients was too late and they died at home or at the hospital because it was basically too late to save them.

Before they knew about it it would have been business as usual and they would have been admitted and treated far earlier and there for more likely to be saved

[SudokuBook]

I was ill in mid Feb, it was a weird thing, never felt quite like a cold, or a flu, or norovirus but it was strange. I was off work for a week but had started feeling ill a week or so before. My dad has had a terrible cough and he’d been in London and in hospital up here too. Loads of people in my work were ill. There’s a significant Chinese population where I live and a large Chinese supermarket I often go into. Loads of people had been in Italy for rugby/half term. The cough I had wasn’t the worst thing I have had but it hurt to cough deeply - pain in the diaphragm.

It didnt seem as bad as a normal flu so was puzzled at the time as to what it actually was. COVID didn’t cross my mind. The only thing is if it had started spreading then we’d surely have started with deaths at that point.

[canigooutyet]

@FusionChefGeoff
There is no if or maybes, it would have been here by the middle of January at the latest. The Uk has a lot of flights from countries with confirmed cases. Many would have used the UK as a layover to other places.

[Ormally]

I think this is quite possible. Another thing I have been thinking over is a point from a US-published article I now can't re-find that said that viral animal to human transmission isn't usually just instantly successful and jumps to the levels we are now aware of; you would typically have to have 1-2 months of it transferring and 'brewing' within a human population before it settles to a rate of transference. So potentially even the point of animal to human transmission is also not to be accurately accepted. If this is the case, and flights, transport etc were at previously normal levels, then earlier looks likely.

[Thighmageddon]

Didn't I read a while back that Chinese scientists believe its mutated in to two strains now?

That could possibly explain why there were milder cases earlier on. Although by mild I mean you felt like you were dying because it made you feel so ill.

[sanealaddin]

Stilldumdedumming I agree re testing. More people are testing negative than positive. I know of a few people recently who thought they had symptoms and were tested. All were negative. I think some people at the moment have hay fever symptoms which they are worried are the virus.

[Derbygerbil]

@canigooutyet

Of course there are “ifs and maybes”. Anecdotal information from people saying they were ill with flu-like symptoms is not hard evidence. Many hundreds of thousands have flu every year, but weirdly they couldn’t have had this year as it must have been Covid

[canigooutyet]

Plus the first confirmed case was end of January beginning of February in the UK. With the info about incubation, it was in the UK in January. Just the government ignored WHO when it was declared a global disaster back in January.

[Derbygerbil]

@SarahTancredi

So you’re saying that the massive spike in deaths from late March onwards is a direct consequence of the Government’s policy on hospitalisation, and there would have been no such spike had that been different.

It’s possible that the hospitalisation policy didn’t help, but to say this is the main reason for the unprecedented and huge spike is preposterous, especially when other countries with very different hospitalisation policies, such as Italy which had a much more open hospitalisation policy.

[Deelish75]

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

DP and I have wandered this. The data coming out of China was a very low death rate, yet it got to Europe and the death rate soared - was that because China were lying about the amount of deaths or because something happened to the virus once it got to Italy in February?

[mayoral]

I'm convinced I had it mid-Jan, so did DH, so did his work colleagues, so did my DC. Awful cough that wouldn't go away, high temp. I thought I had a chest infection at the time.

Can't wait for the antibody test to come out!!

[Broadwayb]

While I think that there were a lot more cases in the U.K. from some point in February than the government had any idea about, I cannot believe that it was here any earlier than that because the graph comparing this year’s deaths to the 5 year average shows it following the normal curve (even slightly under this) right up until mid March, at which point it rocketed. There would have been more deaths faster if it had been here in December.

[Derbygerbil]

Plus the first confirmed case was end of January beginning of February in the UK. With the info about incubation, it was in the UK in January. Just the government ignored WHO when it was declared a global disaster back in January.

It very possibly was... but if so, only a handful would have had it. There’s a tendency for the world and his wife to be certain for their Christmas flu was Covid, and that is was endemic by New Year. That is at total odds with the data.

So I have a choice:

Either believe that every health authority in the entire world is correct, and that widespread transmission outside China didn’t occur until February, something corroborated by every countries’ statistical analysis of deaths;

Or I believe that all the non-medically trained random individuals who had flu-like symptoms when they say it “must have been Covid” even though they have not been tested.

It’s a no brainer...

[Whattodowhattodooo]

@Derbygerbil

However there is now evidence to suggest that it may have appeared in countries earlier than first thought. I am not saying that people couldn't possibly have had the flu, but what my dad had was not the flu. Never once did the GP mention flu. Yes it might have just been one of the winter viruses going around, but you can't without any evidence suggest it COULDNT have been Covid. I'd like to keep an open mind about it. There have been 100,000's of people who have had similar symptoms from February to today which could turn out to be Covid, yet haven't been tested. Are you saying that they have all just had flu/winter virus too?

Not wanting to start an argument, just want to know what evidence you are using to say it can't possibly have been.

[AlecTrevelyan006]

i believe i had it in mid-Feb (so caught it a week or two beforehand). I had four days off work (not had any other time off for five years or so). For me I'd say it was worse than a cold, not quite as bad as flu. I remember joking afterwards that I'd probably caught it from having a Chinese meal. My daughter was ill about a week after me but my wife was fine. At the time I didn't think I had coronavrius but have subsequently changed my mind given what I now know (quite a high rate of infection in the area where I work)

[dancinfeet]

HarrietOh It is quite possible it was the flu, not likely that we will ever know for certain. Another thing that I did notice, was that the aches and pains with whatever I had over christmas was definitely muscular pain, and not joint pain; when I have had the flu before the pain has been in my hips, knees, elbows etc, this was more muscular pain. At the time, I described it as flu, but not flu.

[emwithme]

In the West Country, near Bristol. I'm sure I had this in November/December. I'm mildly asthmatic but had to use a steroid inhaler for the first time in many years, my peak flow was down around 40% from normal. DH also had it - he was coughing for weeks but never so bad he had to go to the doctors so there's no record of it. I remember taking the Mickey out of him having manflu when he took to his bed for three days with a fever and cough, and then I got it a few days later and have never apologised so hard!

So many people I know were ill from mid-November through to early-February with symptoms that if they had them now would tick many of the COVID19 boxes.

I'm keen to get an antibody test to see if we have had it.

[Linwin]

I think it has to have been circulating since Late January/ early February at the very least.

We had a group of German businessmen stay in the hotel who were all sick and had a horrendous cough (the coughing was so bad we put them on their own at the far end of the restaurant so as not to upset other diners) We sent them to the nearest pharmacy and One of them ended up in A&E. A few days later a number of the staff started coming down with the same thing. I’ve never had so many staff off work sick at the same time. This was a couple of weeks before half term.

It will be fascinating to see what the antibody testing uncovers.

[PleasantVille]

I’m not sure who you’re asking but you do know approx fifty percent of people who get it have no symptoms, right?

Is that a proven scientific fact now?

The last analysis I read said possibly as many as 50% but by definition it's very hard to measure. Do you know which institution has confirmed that, I'd like to see the research

[Notonmyshift]

I'm absolutely convinced I had it mid December.
I had never been so ill .
I had a week of work feeling very rundown, was expecting to start feeling better and then woke up the next day and my first words were, that I needed a doctor.

The only way I could describe my symptoms to the doctor was by saying " I can feel it In my lungs"
I was given antibiotics and I doubled the dose for 48 hours.
I didn't feel 💯 till January