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.

@Sheeeeesh

Excellent news. Unfortunately my 84yo nan succumbed last week. She had FL dementia and whilst her death certificate states "with covid" she had nothing else apart from a temperature and a bit unsteady on her feet. Always thought she had the immune system of a trojan as she was never ill. Mum didn't want covid put on her certificate but GP said it had to be 🤷‍♀️ she was never tested/confirmed.

What we don't know is how many of those that MAY have been infected at the time were mild symptoms/asymptomatic cases.

It's true that's theoretically possible but I haven't seen any professional daft enough to suggest it for a couple of weeks now. It was unlikely when first proposed and nothing has emerged to support it since.

Some examples of why we do have an approximate idea of how many non- serious cases there are:

1. South Korea shut down the initial outbreak very quickly and tested everyone in it. They came up with a death rate of 0.7% in a very young healthy population.

1. Germany have tested and contact traced enormously, probably getting the vast majority of cases, even without symptoms. They have a death rate of around 0.4%, though that is with very effective early intervention.

1. The initial Italian outbreak was very contained within a few cities and yet had a lot of fatalities. If the death rate was low enough to remain undetected for several months it would have spread more.

We certainly don't know the exact death rate in the UK, but nor are we wrong by the orders of magnitude needed to mean that the virus has been here since Christmas.

So sorry to hear about your nan, OP.

DH had a bad chest infection early in January - had 2 lots of antibiotics and 2 lots of steroid tablets. So we are hoping he has had it. DH works at an airport - lots of international travellers!

I am still seething that I was palmed off every time I tried to get help for whatever I have been suffering from since the end of last November, and now I am being told on the 'phone that I am suffering from "Post Covid-19"!

@Whattodowhattodooo so sorry to hear about your Nan how upsetting and frustrating for you and your family to have no confirmation through testing that it was actually Covid. So sorry for your loss.

There were some very bad tempered exchanges on here when people suggested that it might have been here earlier than late February.

I've mentioned this before but in late January my mum mentioned that lots of people she knew (but fortunately not her) had "flu" and were quite poorly (as in ill for a week or so) and all had had the flu vaccine. And I was surprised because I thought the flu vaccine had been pretty effective in the season just gone. So I wonder if it was covid.

But if it was, why were all the cases so mild? Nobody needed hospital, I don't think anyone needed a doctor, they were just crying off events because they weren't well which was why my mum knew about it.

Yes my bil caught it later. They stayed away from family as they were clearly quite ill and family has a young baby.

If it was here earlier, around December, early January wouldn’t there have been a higher death rate around this time? Hospitals over run? There were no reports of the “flu season” being particularly bad or different to our average flu season. Or has the virus changed and become more contagious?

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.

fullfact.org/media/uploads/UK_spike_chart.png

If Covid was endemic in January, how do you explain this chart... and there are similar charts worldwide. I accept there may have been a small number of cases earlier than official records, but this is very strong evidence that Covid wasn’t widespread back then.

I don’t understand why people can’t they probably just had the flu, and 1000 upon 1000s of people do annually (and the flu jab is less than 50% effective in case anyone uses that argument).

I've mentioned this before but in late January my mum mentioned that lots of people she knew (but fortunately not her) had "flu" and were quite poorly (as in ill for a week or so) and all had had the flu vaccine. And I was surprised because I thought the flu vaccine had been pretty effective in the season just gone. So I wonder if it was covid.

I was surprised at this... but it seems the flu vaccine isn’t especially effective.

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/inactivated-flu-vaccine

As low as 15% in 2017-18.

@CKBJ

I'd suggest that people were putting it down to flu and staying home and treating with OTC remedies. Flu can be treated at home and is recommended unless people have breathing difficulties.

It is not completely unbelievable that it was here earlier than expected or in other countries. Also, as with any epidemic, it starts off small then builds as we began to see from March onwards.

Isn't it the lily pad on the pond thing? If lily pads take 60 days to cover a pond, and they increase by doubling every day, what day will they cover half the pond - day 59 of course. But it takes until day 54 to cover 1.5% of the pond. ie it's hardly there until it's everywhere. Maybe we reached our "day 58"(quarter of the pond) in March.

Presentation on itsokbesmart or google lily pad pond epidemic.

So it wasn't widespread in Dec/Jan but it might well have been here?

As low as 15% in 2017-18

December 2017 and 2018 however, according to phe records showed flu to be below baseline levels.

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

There is literally a story in the news today about a French doctor who had a patient in icu in December and he's been tested and he had COVID 19. His children got it, his wife had no symptoms if she did habe it but had been working with Chinese people in a market. With that having been a confirmed case it seems v unlikely it wasn't also spreading in the population. It's highly contagious.

I genuinely don't know what to think and am happy to listen to the experts but it is seeming more and more convincing that at least a milder strain of it was going around earlier. I have a friend who's normally v healthy 8 year old got a horrendous cough in December and yes, it could have been something else but it wasn't like any illness her dd had had before.

I would personally be doing back flips if it was spreading earlier as it means more of the population have had it than is estimated and we're that bit closer to life getting back to normal.

There were no reports of the “flu season” being particularly bad or different to our average flu season. Or has the virus changed and become more contagious?

I heard that this year’s flu strain wasn’t very virulent (a Dr told me that)

@Derbygerbil
By the end of January, a lot of countries had reported confirmed cases. I really don't know where you are getting your info from. The CDC reported the first case in the US and on the 17th January ordered screening at airports. The guy hadn't been to any of the markets etc, it was first linked to.

@Broadwayb the UK government was issued the same warning back in January about 2019-nCoV as other nations. It was new and it was a global disaster.

This is one of the many, many, confirmed cases outside China back in January.
www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-centers-for-disease-control-first-case-united-states/

@SarahTancredi

My point is that people who say “I’ve had the flu jab so it MUST have been Covid” are wrong... The 15% was just an extreme example to make a point... last year it was c.50% for instance.

@canigooutyet

But I’m not denying that Covid wasn’t outside China in January - it was.... My issue is with the notion that Covid was widespread in January.

I admit I need to get some new glasses, but I'm sure the date on this article, about the first UK confirmed cases, was January 31st.

www.standard.co.uk/news/health/first-uk-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-a4349751.html

I was very unwell late last year. Dry cough, feeling hot and cold at the same time. No energy. It kept coming and going. Like I'd feel unwell, get better, then a week or 2 later I'd feel unwell again. Went on for over a month.

derby

The point I was trying to make is that in those years the rates of flu outbreaks when with a potential vaccine that was only 15 percent effective, 2018 flue cases were still below baseline threshold levels

This year we were up. End of december records show above threshold levels for the first time in at least 2 years

China has also released information that they tracked patient X. 55-year-old man. This was November 17th, and they noticed it spread between 1 and 5 people every day.
There is also a very strong possibility that patient X caught it from someone else, they are still looking as it could have been earlier.

This is why we need proper testing and antibodies test. A number of people in my family had a virus before Christmas - parents, nephew, sister, MIL, GMIL, FIL (who had time off work, unheard of before), with a flu-type virus, run down, fatigued, no appetite and they all remarked on the hacking cough that they were left with for ages. So some of them (MIL especially), thinks she has had COVID-19.

I didn't get the thing over Christmas, but about 5 weeks ago I started with some kind of virus, which lasted for 3 weeks: chills, headache that lasted for days, breathlessness, lower than usual SATS, fatigue, weird cough. Was it COVID-19, who knows? DH and DS showed no signs. I was left with weird rashy thing too.

But knowledge is power and we need information to make correct decisions. All we are doing is best guestimates and fuelling theories. I think it could be another 12 months before we get a truer picture of what has been going on.