BBC Article on possible CV-19 cases in the UK in January

[CaveMum]

Wonder what your thoughts are on this article - written by an epidemiologist who is investigating a choir who had several members displaying classic Covid symptoms in January - 2 months before the first official cases.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52589449

I’m definitely not one of the tin foil hat wearing brigade, but I do wonder if this has been circulating for a lot longer than the official numbers tell us. DH is pretty convinced we both had it back in February as within a week of each other (me first, then him) we were both floored by an awful virus that had very similar symptoms to CV. It took us both weeks to shake off the cough and we both said that we’d never felt so awful - we’re both pretty healthy individuals, rarely off work sick, etc.

Of course the flip side of that is why did we not seeing an increase in deaths back in January/February? Perhaps the only way we’ll know is once a reliable antibody test is developed and when we can look back over the whole year at the total number of deaths, etc.

Maybe January was the first mild wave and what we have now is the mutated 2nd wave

Really interesting been wondering about this too, I never get ill but had the worst cough, aching and slight fever in the middle of February which lasted for weeks, my dad also had it, we've both wondered if if may have been Covid. I was still coughing 6 weeks later.... I'm a fit healthy non smoker and this floored me. They have just discovered cases in France dating back to 21st December so it's not impossible that it was starting to get a grip over here.
We all need antibody tests to get to the bottom of this but with our shower of shite of a government I'm not holding my breath.

There's another thread a few of us are quite active on discussing this.

Lots of reports of us having had symptoms.

Us too, from January 1st.

@Thighmageddon which thread is that please?

Cave was just getting the link, it's 20 pages long now.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3899285-It-MIGHT-have-been-here-before-Feb-March

DH is convinced that I had it at the end of Jan as had a cough that wouldn’t shake for weeks, fever of 40+ at times etc. I’ve never had the flu to my knowledge so just put it down to that but it seemed to be a fair bit worse than other people I know that had the flu before Christmas. DH and 1 y/o DD didn’t catch it from me, whatever it was.

Thanks!

I don't think we'll have seen an increase in death numbers as it wasn't as widespread as it was now, infection volumes would have been low. There would have been anomalies I'm sure in the death figures, but perhaps attributed to the normal seasonal flu.

What I would be interested in as what impact the increase in stress hormones is having on our body's ability to beat this virus. Back in January and February, the fear and anxiety-inducing headlines were not happening. I think if you got it in January for example, you would have never had any fears whatsoever that it might kill you. You would have just got on with it If you got it now, I think there would be people whose fear and stress about dying would be going into complete overdrive. This can't be helpful to the body

Seems very likely with the wuhan link and the choir theyve found singing really spreads it...

I think someone calc the number of wuhan flight and it's unlikely it didnt spread.tbh im not convinced we didnt spread it to italy... After all thry noticed it after uk went over for half term.

It is incredibly suspicious that we cant get antibody tests they are waiting till it's reasonable for that many of us to have had it ...

However i suspect they knew about this so thought oh well we wont need to lockdown then realised it would look weird if they didnt.
But then im unsure if the number of desths has surprised them or as you hear rumours they are claiming people have cv who dont..

I never get coughs but in Jan I got a dreadful illness with cough that lasted 9 weeks - ended up having scans at hospital as it wouldn’t go away.

However that was Jan 2019.

Illnesses and viruses are always around

There are people with ongoing lingering coughs now that have been going on for weeks or months but aren’t COVID

It’s a very different cough and it seems the cough is not the main symptom

Not too sure why people keep talking about coughs they’ve had a year ago to prove someone’s illness this year wasn’t COVID

There was something doing the rounds with a pretty bad cough at end of last year.

With the way Covid 19 spreads, we would have seen much higher incidences of it if it was actually out there in the general population as people want to suggest it was.

It’s not tin hat to wonder if evidence will show earlier cases in the U.K. given the level of international travel. People may well just not have known or realised.

There would be fairly few cases though so those who had similar symptoms vastly more likely to have had flu or similar.

Covid symptoms in January - 2 months before the first official cases.

Huh? First official U.K. covid death was early March, but our first confirmed cases were at the end of Jan (Chinese student and their relative in York)

Among the first singers to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17 or 18 December and developed a hacking cough.

Interesting. Incredible coincidence if it wasn’t covid then.

I also have a relative in the area who had classic symptoms at the end of December.

Dh was in China at the end of nov (not Wuhan though..)
He had a sore throat whilst there.
Then both dc came down with viral illness in December
By January ds1 was really poorly and coughing up blood.
He had a course of steroids and antibiotics.
We will never know obv but one wonders

I have a family member who was ill towards the end of February - when we'd all heard of COVID, but thought community transmission wasn't happening, and there was no known contact with a returned traveller or a confirmed case.

We joked that he must have it - Hugh temp, breathlessness, cough, really wiped out. The bing-bong was the anosmia, but we did.

I'd love it if he were ever antibody tested.

But set against this has to be the number of symptomatic people who tested negative in the early days. They's got something, just not COVID, but anosmia wasn't so well known as a symptom then, so I doubt we could ever discover if they had that symptom or not (short of an awful lot of individual follow up)

DH is convinced (I'm slightly more skeptical, but not sure he's wrong) we had it back in end Jan /early Feb - neither of us had much of a cough but both iller than we'd usually be with a cold-ish thing and lost our sense of taste. I also had the thing others have had where it felt like a weight on my chest when breathing.

Won't really know until there's an antibody test, but maybe?

XH (who has some relevant qualifications) has been wondering if some cases might have been brought to universities in January by returning students, and there could have been considerable community spread but in mild form amongst students (young, likely to get it mildly)

Snag is the timeline of when serious cases and deaths started to emerge, because surely they would have been seen earlier if community transmission was happening (for lie risk young students still have plenty of contact with riskier groups)

That's interesting

Ds1 goes to a college with a large Chinese contingent

I was at a wedding in mid December that had lots of people hey in from all over the world (although not China as far as I’m aware) - 5 days later went down with a really nasty bug that wasn’t flu or a cough/cold but sort of - having subsequently read the list of covid symptoms - the weird feeling of drowning/choking rather than normal coughing and being badly knocked out for a couple of weeks and then not right for a couple of months stood out.

No idea if it was covid but if I had it now I would think it was - but that’s much earlier than it was supposed to be!

I find it hard to believe that it only manifested in the UK in February. Surely, surely, some persons in the UK would have interacted with persons from Wuhan before then, be it over here, in China or elsewhere.

wondering if some cases might have been brought to universities in January by returning students
^^this makes total sense. It would be interesting to know the international Chinese student statistics during this period and if they have undergone screening (symptom questionnaires). Antibody testing would be useful.

@Kitchendoctor sorry I misquoted the article, it was “two months before the first confirmed cases of transmission within the UK”, prior to that other confirmed cases were in people who had been abroad and returned with the virus.