Doctor says DS (7) probably had CV in December

[Freetodowhatiwant]

Just that really, fascinating if we could find out. DS, 7, had a cough like I’ve never seen before at Christmas in Spain. I’ve been to hospital about 15 times with both of my children, more often the younger one, when they’ve had croup or a viral wheeze so I’m very used to what these sound like. The cough ds has at Christmas saw him coughing for weeks and weeks but at the peak had him non stop for 5 whole hours without any break. By 2am that morning when nothing was stopping him coughing I went to the chemist to get some steroids as I know this is what we are often given in hospital for croup but I knew there was no croup or viral wheeze, just this constant dry cough. As it was by the time I got back from the chemist he had finally stopped coughing enough to sleep and they next day at the clinic they gave him inhalers which he needed for a good few weeks afterwards.

Anyway I had a call today from his younger sibling’s asthma doctor and although I was pleased to report the 5yo has not had to use an inhaler for months and months I said it was funny as DS had had to have one. She asked for details about this and said it sounded like he had had Covid back in December, especially given we were in spain.

Who knows! Would BA interesting to get him an antibody test but as far as I’m aware they are expensive and not always accurate.

@ChubbyPigeon No in February you couldn't have a test if you had symptoms. Even in the second week of March you couldn't.

They were only testing people who had more than 24 hours stay in ITU.

@Freetodowhatiwant

Like @CarolVordermansArse (great name) thank you says with cases of similar symptoms being noticed from as early as September even in the UK. That sounds awful, the hospital experience with people being wheeled out under sheets. Obviously this happens all the time but did you get a sense that it was something they thought was increasing?

We were more concerned at the time with our sick relative who was fortunately, in a way, too sick to know what was going on around them. However, I did notice closed curtains and at first thought someone was being examined or they were going to clean up something. It was a ward where everyone was on oxygen so once again didn't think it was anything but what we were told. We just thought that as people were clearly rather ill it would be normal for some of them not to recover. The staff didn't seem to think it was anything unusual, but it was the start of normal (for want of a better word) flu season, and it was a ward for respiratory patients so probably didn't register at the time as anything out of the ordinary.

And then there is the possibility of transmission, we were there in a smallish, stuffy ward full of sick people on oxygen, we hugged the patient twice, arrival and departure, were close to the bedside. To this day not one of us has had symptoms of the virus.

Until lockdown we were leading our normal lives, there was socialising for work, normal shopping, eating out etc. Only one person we know has been ill with it, and that was someone we hadn't seen for years.

We must have been in contact with the virus many times, including with the patient and close family members.

@ChubbyPigeon

To the people saying they had it in february, the UK had the virus in february? At that time Im sure you could get a test if you thought you had symptoms.

Im not saying the virus wasnt around before january. But I find it unlikely so many people had it, because I think we would have seen more hospitilizations. Its fairly common for people in their 40s to need hospital treatment and we quite simply didnt have that, again one or two maybe. Actaully 8% of men who've tested positive in their 40-60s have died, so its not like its just elderly getting affected.

There was a long period in late Feb/March where hospitals were on the lookout for the virus and we just didnt have the cases. People were unlikely to be slipping under the radar with covid in hpspitals at this time. So what happened in february/march thay caused the virus to spiral out of control? And not just in the UK but accross Europe? We followed a similar trajectory initially to italy, France and Spain but a little bit later. So what happened in all those countries at that time? In the USA?

Its not just us that would have to have missed a spike in deaths in december.

Covid patients were presenting differently to flu patients. Drs were saying things like their O2 sats just drop,Ive never seen this before. If it had been so out there in the community most hospital drs would have said "hang on a second, this was happening in december'

Im sure Drs say 'theres a strange virus going round' every fucking year.

Studies have shown that at least 30%, in some cases 70% of people infected with covid have few or no symptoms or that their symptoms don't fit the 'typical' covid pattern - they have diarrhoea but no cough for example. Plenty of people have a cough but no temperature and think they just have hay fever or a regular cough.

It is absolutely not the case that a big proportion of those infected need hospital treatment.

My dm was hospitalised in January. No one knew what was wrong with her. She had breathing difficulties (wheezing, unable to breathe, weak), a temperature (going hot and cold) and a cough.
I wouldn’t rule out her as having it, as she’s had a double heart bypass and fought off cancer three times.

@StarFishFantasies we had hubs set up outside hospitals end of feb/early march so people with suspected symptoms could be swabbed

It was later as the disease became more prevelent we stooped swabbing people with suspected symptoms

My son was horribly ill before Christmas too. Very high temp and I've never him breath as fast. My husband and I got a bit ill but it does make me wonder!

@TheDailyCarbuncle I said its fairly common. Which it is. Yes lots of people wont need hospitilization, but given the numbers that have now, I find it hard to believe that it was so prevelent in the UK before January, as I think we would have noticed the additional hospitilizations.

Im not saying there were no cases before then, chances are that there were a few. But if the disease really was prevelent in the UK it begs the question what the fuck happened in March?

@ChubbyPigeon I was in hospital with symptoms. I was not tested, there was no hub. I went in March 15th. I am in London. Went back at the end of March and there was a hub.

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Or whooping cough? I guess youd have a heard a whoop though

Not necessarily my children all had whooping cough. We didn’t realise it was what the eldest had had for weeks until my middle child got it . She had the whoop, the eldest didn’t. Then the youngest got it and he didn’t have the whoop either.

I would love to believe I had it mid February. I was wiped out for a day and felt rough for about a week after, but after the first day would probably have dragged myself in to work if I hadn't already been on holiday that week (I'm that type). DS (17) had a cough for 3-4 weeks, having never had a cough before. DH was same as me. Mostly fatigue and fever but sinus, ear pain, sore throat. No runny nose or cough though for us.
I'm on the tube every day so it's possible.
Thing that makes me think it wasn't around earlier though is the excess deaths graphs. The excess deaths don't really start picking up until March. Certainly December and January looked normal for excess deaths.

I had a miserable dose in December, but I just don't believe it was circulating that widely here (NI) then. If I'd had the same dose in March, I'd have no doubt.

I'm asthmatic and get lots of coughs and colds and had already had my worst winter ever (pregnancy didn't help). That dose was different though in that I never had a runny nose, and it started with a bad cough and high temperature. I took to the bed for a long weekend, which I never do, even though the toddler had norovirus and so DH really could've used some back up. For the first time ever, I coughed until I threw up, several times, but I put that down to pregnancy.

The thing that gives me pause is that I completely lost my sense of smell for a month or so, which has never happened to me before. I could breathe perfectly through my nose but smell absolutely nothing. I completely missed that toddler DD had a dirty nappy for god knows how long - trust me when I say, that wouldn't be possible normally!

A lot of viruses have very similar symptoms.

DD1 had a dreadful cough/flu/virus in November. She was on the verge of hospitalisation - couldn't walk, couldn't sleep for the cough, temperature, run down etc etc.

It was just a virus. She has weak lungs so everything goes to her chest. But I must admit that I've looked at her since and wondered if it could have been Covid.

But it probably wasn't.

@StarFishFantasiesfish thats really bizarre as we already had cases in our hospital on March 15, we had been swabbing inpatients for a couple of weeks. I would have assumed a london hospital would have had several cases at that point too.

I wonder if the virus has mutated to become more lethal ? As happened with Spanish flu.
Although the excess deaths could have been covered by the fact we had fewer deaths from flu this Winter. In Feb DH was very unwell after a visit to London, he had typical Covid symptoms but at the time they were saying it was only a concern if you had been to China etc. He has tested negative for antibodies using a home test, so I suppose will won’t know for sure unless they develop a more sophisticated antibody test .

we were in hospital last week and we were told they tested flu swabs from november/december from people with pneumonia and found it was actually covid.
they are quite confident my husband had it in early january.

we are in midlands

Two people I know died of pneumonia in mid January, living very close to each other.

I'm quite sure I caught it in late October. Coughed though Nov, and not quite right until NY. I'm otherwise healthy. Some very nasty coughs worked their way though the office late last year to Jan, and we then saw no cases during the outbreak-proper.

ChubbyPigeon our London teaching hospital went from no cases on 4th March (they were all being cohorted at GSTT and RFH to start with), to completely swamped by 16th. It was crazy. I’d be surprised if any London hospital had zero cases on 14th March, but I guess it is possible if they were running a few days behind us, less thorough with admission swabbing (ie they had cases but didn’t know), or were still trying to divert all the covid cases to a different site.

I keep hearing about old tests being tested, but not that anything is discovered. I know six people who had nasty cough virus things in Dec , in various places, not related to each other.
But antibody tests don't seem to reveal much yet.

No in February you couldn't have a test if you had symptoms. Even in the second week of March you couldn't

We could. Admittedly we had a massive in-house swabbing programme that our virology lab set up. But I have just checked our minutes, and we were already swabbing on arrival in A&E on 2nd March, and were swabbing suspected ward patients from 9th. We started swabbing our staff from 19th March.

Did the French retest old samples and find someone who had it in December? Are old samples kept?
I know someone who had two lumbar punctures in December -he was told he didn't have viral meningitis, he had 'a nasty virus' at a follow up appointment. His symptoms and recovery sound covid ish, but so do nasty viruses!

@ChubbyPigeon I was ill for six weeks from 20 Feb. Saw my GP in March. They suspected Covid-19 but I didn’t fit the testing criteria as I hadn’t been in direct contact with a confirmed case or been to one of the listed countries. So I didn’t get a test. Loads of people were in the same position as me.

My DS1 was selected for a random test last month as part of a study. I had to complete a survey afterwards. It asked whether he had had any symptoms of COVID-19 since November. The authorities definitely know/suspect that it has been around for some time/

@eggandonion

Did the French retest old samples and find someone who had it in December? Are old samples kept? I know someone who had two lumbar punctures in December -he was told he didn't have viral meningitis, he had 'a nasty virus' at a follow up appointment. His symptoms and recovery sound covid ish, but so do nasty viruses!

Yes. Then other French scientists identified covid consistent lung scans from November hospital patients and are now examining scans from October.

I can imagine how scans and xrays would be available. but if swabs and blood was tested for a suspected infection, would the samples be destroyed? (Especially if nobody was aware how to test for covid as t didn't officially exist before Christmas).