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.

@Noooblerooble

If Covid was widespread so early how do you explain this graph (and similar ones exist worldwide in proportion to how badly the countries have been effected:

fullfact.org/media/uploads/UK_spike_chart.png

Covid was here in January (I’ve never denied that @canigooutyet), but the evidence that it was here in significant numbers (extrapolation from randoms on MN who are “certain” despite it being the middle of the flu season, not having been tested and not be medically trained) is DWARFED by the evidence it wasn’t (see multiple graphs an stats, along with all nations’ health bodies).

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

As they ebb and flow every year.... If the more widespread in January really was Covid, why wasn’t there a spike then like we’ve seen in April? It makes no sense. Why are people so determined to believe Covid was widespread in December and January when thy evidence is so overwhelming to the contrary.

@donquixotedelamancha

NYC is a good case study... 0.2% of its population died since late March from Covid. Antibody tests suggest 20-25% have had it. That’s equivalent to a 0.8-1% death rate.

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

Isn’t that exactly what everyone is saying? It was not very widespread but it was here?

I am in agreement that all the people saying they had it very likely didn’t, it was just a winter bug, but I think it was here and already spreading by the end of last year, it was as omar says, the Lilly pad analogy. It had to start somewhere and that somewhere was likely before we knew it.

If we have say 200k confirmed cases , and twenty percent of people with it need hospitalisation, and those confirmed cases are predominantly hospital tests, then it still only means a million people in the uk have had it. It’s either still not widespread...or the hospitalisation rate is much lower than we thought, and the subsequent death rate.

It seems odd that I was so ill just after Christmas with a horrible cough and flu like symptoms and I haven’t been ill for ten years (did have the flu jab this year.)

Or if you use the one percent Death rate, which is almost globally agreed, then 30k deaths, three million people who have had it in the uk.

A tiny percentage.

^this

It seems odd that I was so ill just after Christmas with a horrible cough and flu like symptoms and I haven’t been ill for ten years

Only because you’re positively re enforcing it in your head,if Covid didn’t exist you’d just think you got a winter bug, like most of us do at some point.

Friend's mother - and we are in the south west - not only had the bad bug just after Christmas, but ended up with severely damaged lungs as a result. The doctors could not explain it, and one of them has started to wonder out loud whether it could have been COVID, as that's the only thing they have ever seen like this.

Story just come up in the Guardian saying a French patient was retrospectively diagnosed with Covid-19 from tests taken on December 27th.

Can't isolate the story, it's 2 or 3 down on this page: www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/04/coronavirus-live-news-mike-pompeo-pushes-virus-lab-theory-as-brazil-passes-100000-cases

South west area nr bath/Bristol. Family of 5. We all had symptoms of a weird 'cold', or series of colds from around late December to March. I remember thinking I haven't had this many cough/colds one after the other for ages! But put it down to having a toddler at nursery. But even for her, she seemed to get a lot. Nearly 2 yo was hot one night but had a cough and congestion that lingered on for ages. I had a sore throat that came and went, dry, tickly (not chesty) cough and just felt tired and wiped out and foggy headed for ages. Dp was laid up for a few days but couldn't really shake it for ages, normally he's full of energy but he wasn't firing on all cylinders which was starting to worry me. He's asthmatic and hardly ever uses an inhaler but was using that a lot. I had a couple of episodes of breathlessness and had to borrow his inhaler once. Other 2 dcs has a couple of days off just feeling under the weather. Dd was a bit hot and ds was coughing in the night but that was it. Also, around that time, a few of the toddlers my dd knows had same symptoms. My friends ds was red hot for 2 days over Christmas and ended up getting taken to hospital as his temperature wouldn't go down. After that, a few of the toddlers had strange rashes/spots. I remember joking to my mum it was corona but thought it couldn't possibly be, because apparently not in the country yet. Now this 'cold' was weird as no runny nose and not like a regular cold but it wasn't flu either. (I've had a bad case of influenza twice before and it was nothing like that).

Dp then found out that his work colleague who was doing building with him had same symptoms, so did his wife, mother, daughter, the whole family. An electrician who worked with them at the time said he had the same. His wife came down with it, got quite bad and ended up in hospital. This was just before the lockdown. They tested her and she was positive. It then got us thinking, maybe we did have it? Many people saying the same thing. Someone upthread mentioned they had a weird prickly heat type of rash. My dp has been suffering with this for a while. It's only just stopped this week.

I'm becoming more convinced the more I read. I think maybe Chinese students brought it back to the unis around Chinese New Year? I think as many do... China had been trying to cover it up, hoping it wouldn't get out there. They knew it was spreading around before they said they did. Our gov may have realised before too. Some studies have shown it could be much more infectious, but less deadly. Many have already had it! Those tests matt Hancock got from China were faulty? Coincidence? Or they don't want people finding out the true extent. Someone upthread said many people had tested negative, but maybe they weren't nr a cluster or those tests not 100% reliable. A dr on LBC radio was testing anti body tests on Friday (must be the new test) and he said 4/5 people who reported previous symptoms tested positive for antibodies. They really need to get these and roll them out en mass. It could potentially save a lot of unnecessary restrictions.

If Covid was widespread so early how do you explain this graph (and similar ones exist worldwide in proportion to how badly the countries have been effected:

I can't and that's why I don't know what to think.

I've just gone from thinking 'the spike in deaths shows it only arrived here in Feb/March' to thinking it is at least possible it was spreading in Dec and it needs further investigating. There are too many people saying they had an unusual virus that made them very ill. There are too many questions. Like this confirmed Dec ICU case in France - he must have spread it before going to hospital.

Is there any chance I could've had it late September? Because in September, we moved house and got a cat.

I'd been running daily in the early mornings for about 8 months before that with absolute no issue. But come September, I developed what I thought was asthma while running. I also got a nasty cold/cough with shortness of breath. This lasted for about a week. The arrival of the cat coincided with this so I thought I was allergic to the cat. It got so bad that we almost considered rehoming the cat.

I then went to the GP to ask for an asthma diagnosis but she said I didn't have asthma and prescribed the blue inhaler which i still take every day before i run. If not, i get breathless in five minutes. After the first episode of breathlessness/cough/cold, I got another 'attack' three weeks later.

I've never had asthma. My dad does though. So it could be asthma that I inherited. Or, I can't help but wonder whether what I had was coronavirus... but surely, September is too early?

No I think we can all say with certainty you didn’t have it in September

Why fewer deaths earlier? Perhaps a less severe strain? Perhaps immobility makes the illness worse due to natural mechanisms for moving the mucus along being impeded? It's known that shallow breaths and immobility generally are pneumonia risk factors. Perhaps lockdown actually made it worse (in the West - query around ACE2 and severity).

Therefore, perhaps the initial waves (waves?) before COVID was identified were less severe as the unwell were allowed to remain active, leave their houses, continue to go to work - walking and moving.

Who knows. 🤷‍♀️

All I can say about the spike is maybe it's taking longer than previously thought to escalate and get severe. So it got here. Spread around a bit, incubation period 2 wks they say. Then a couple of weeks to get symptoms and then a couple more to get worse and die if it's severe. It seemed to come in waves on and off for ages. Maybe it's an even slower burner and it triggers secondary infections. It wasn't like flu that comes on really suddenly. Hits you like a ton of bricks with fever, sweats aches and in an hour i was bedridden for a couple of wks, then slowly recovered. Not like that atall. Just a long period of feeling not quite right, tired, coughs and sore throat.

COVID calculated back to China in at least September.

metro.co.uk/2020/04/18/coronavirus-may-started-september-scientists-say-12576961/

I’ve been a naysayer about it being here earlier than thought (we had whatever it was doing the rounds at Christmas time) purely because we didn’t see the scenes we’ve seen over the last couple of months.

But I have been wondering lately if we’re actually in our second wave. I’m clearly not a medic or scientist but I can’t shake the theory that the second wave of the Spanish flu was so deadly in part due to cytokine storms more likely to happen with a second infection. The demographics of deaths don’t really match (I understand it’s more likely to happen in the young with stronger immune systems) and I’m pretty sure a scientist could tell me exactly why I’m wrong but it does keep crossing my mind.

To be truthful I think it’s more wishful thinking on my part. I’m sure a country ahead of us would have noticed a really high rate of antibody testing showing up positive on an unexpected number of people.

Ok, here's a question for someone who knows their infectious disease transmission. If that poor man who was unhelpfully labelled the superspreader was patient zero (for arguments sake) would the peak have been on April the 8th? Or can you work backwards from the peak and find out when it was likely to have been spreading quietly?

Several friends had suspected c19 over Christmas, one of them had been in Shanghai in late November. I by chance didn't go to the event in mid December they were all at due to a clash

Maybe it mutated and got stronger? Other countries might not have reported antibodies showing up as you never know, maybe it actually hit us before some other countries? There was a study in America though where they tested a group of homeless people in a homeless shelter for antibodies and it turned out that I think about 80% had antibodies but nearly all we're asymptomatic. They weren't even aware they'd been ill.

Why fewer deaths earlier? Perhaps a less severe strain? Perhaps immobility makes the illness worse due to natural mechanisms for moving the mucus along being impeded? It's known that shallow breaths and immobility generally are pneumonia risk factors. Perhaps lockdown actually made it worse (in the West - query around ACE2 and severity)

Thats something I've kinda wondered aswell. While we didnt know what ot was and treated it like any other generic winter bug, was there something that we were inadvertently doing or not doing something that somehow meant people were less ill or less out of action.

@bluntness - that stat only works for known cases - as a 1 percent death rate. Its irrevant when you dont know how many people have had it and could be significantly lower!

@Bluntness100

Isn’t that exactly what everyone is saying? It was not very widespread but it was here?

Not really... If a random selection of MNers who happen to chance on this thread believe they,
friends or family have had in December/January, the implication is that it was widespread.

@Cornettoninja that 'second wave' theory is actually really interesting!