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.

The WHO is encouraging all countries to go back and do investigations. So they are clearly suspecting this has been around a lot longer than we thought. The evidence is mounting.

I think the view is that it hit the younger, more mobile, healthier people first. So business travellers, skiers etc.

There are signs that some people have natural immunity so it may not have gained traction as quickly as we would have expected.

The signs of all the activity around hospitals in Wuhan in August and the googling of symptoms looks like it was there then. Yet they didn’t tip in to exponential growth until Jan....

Follows it may have been here from October maybe even September but again we didn’t get exponential growth until Feb.

If 50-70% of people have no symptoms this is a difficult virus to spot and it will take a while for it to take hold in a population and lead to deaths. It really doesn’t behave like other viruses.

I think the conspiracy theory is that our first case was end of Jan. it clearly wasn’t and investigations need to be happening now. It will affect our knowledge and understanding of this virus...

It would be great news, I feel, if many people did have it months before it was said to be prevalent as that would hopefully mean there is more immunity to it. Hopefully.

The most pertinent part of this is loads of people (who are medical professionals) thought they'd had it but hadn't or at least tested negative

A lot of my colleagues were swab-positive, symptomatic, and are now antibody negative. Plenty of people do not seem to have developed antibodies (which i’m Sure is a real kick in the teeth for them - they’ve had it, and they aren’t even immune).

Yes, it doesn't seem to follow the usual rules.

I would love to have an antibody test. Me and DH had an awful coughing bug over Xmas and newyear. Took me weeks and weeks to feel anywhere near normal again. I literally couldn’t move without having a coughing fit. It was odd as apart from high temperature and aches we didn’t have any other symptoms you normally get like sneezes or snot etc. Interestingly the kids all had a high temp for about half a day then a bit of a cough for a few weeks which fits with the kids don’t get it very badly idea.

they’ve had it, and they aren’t even immune

You quite simply don’t know that.

Possibly whooping cough? There isn’t always a whoop. I do think it’s been around from well before January though.

@ChristmasCarcass

The most pertinent part of this is loads of people (who are medical professionals) thought they'd had it but hadn't or at least tested negative

A lot of my colleagues were swab-positive, symptomatic, and are now antibody negative. Plenty of people do not seem to have developed antibodies (which i’m Sure is a real kick in the teeth for them - they’ve had it, and they aren’t even immune).

Or they have either some immunity or resistance and our current tests don't show that.

I work in a public facing role and I think I may have contracted it at the end of January. Symptoms fit exactly with Covid ones even with a wave of going downhill a week after improving from the initial illness.
We will never know though.

That’s really interesting @ChristmasCarcass

Not sure about the whooping cough but certainly no hooping evident just constant no-break coughing for hours (I think this happened more than once over the most intense part of his cough) and then a cough that went on for months. We are all up to date with immunisations and I did have the hooping cough booster in pregnancy too.

@ChristmasCarcass

The most pertinent part of this is loads of people (who are medical professionals) thought they'd had it but hadn't or at least tested negative

A lot of my colleagues were swab-positive, symptomatic, and are now antibody negative. Plenty of people do not seem to have developed antibodies (which i’m Sure is a real kick in the teeth for them - they’ve had it, and they aren’t even immune).

The antibody tests are not fully indicative of either who has had Covid-19 or - if they have had it - ‘they aren’t even immune.’ They may have fought off the virus via T-cells without antibodies ever developing. There’s a lot still to be learned about the human immune system, but it appears that many people who have had Covid-19 won’t have antibodies. The tests do throw up false negatives too.

@squiglet111 the nhs antibody test has already started but it’s only for nhs staff at the moment.
I had a terrible cough all of March and half of April...negative swab and antibody test

16% of people who have had it will test negative for antibodies as the test isn't perfect.

It's not that the test isn't perfect, its that it can't detect what isn't there. Not everyone has the same immune response. The project working on the plasma treatment have asked for older men to come forward because they are the most likely to have produced antibodies.

But if the disease really was prevelent in the UK it begs the question what the fuck happened in March?

It started to become prevalent amongst vulnerable populations, most notably finding it's way into care homes.

@SaskiaRembrandt

But if the disease really was prevelent in the UK it begs the question what the fuck happened in March?

It started to become prevalent amongst vulnerable populations, most notably finding it's way into care homes.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Aesopfable why doesn't make sense? It makes perfect sense that if a greater number of people who are susceptible to serious illness contract a disease then we will see a greater number of serious cases that require hospital admission. If that disease is largely affecting less vulnerable people then we will see fewer cases of serious illness and fear hospitalisations.

fewer not fear

I think part of it is that now people are being logged as having died WITH Covid, even if it was a heart attack or something that killed them.
Back in Dec/jan, people were dieing of heart attacks and pneumonia etc but it was being logged as that as no-one knew to log it as Covid. It makes sense that it took a few weeks/months to ramp up and even mutated Into a more deadly strain.
There’s been satellite footage of medical facilities in wuhan that shows they were vastly more busy in sep/Oct then they normally are and I wonder if the same was done for here if it would show a similar trend?

Im not totally sure how it would have managed to spread amongst healthy populations and not make its way into carehomes/vunerable populations. Bearing in mind how easily infections spread in hospitals, and how many elderly are discharged to care homes etc. And how it escalated as it did. Someone comes into hospital its quite easy to spread it to everyone else in their bay.

I can see how maybe somewhere like london, where you have lots of younger adults mixing daily on the tube it may have spread amongst the younger, fitter population. Figures seem to suggest around 8% of 50-60 yr olds require hospitlization (adjusted to take into account potential undiagnosed), thats a fair amount of 50 yr olds to just miss though. Even if we assume the actual figure is half that.

Im sure it probably has been around since november in some capacity, but I dont see how it managed to totally avoid vunerable populations and then suddenly escalate as it did.

And if we are going with up to 70% of cases maybe asymptomatic (only data i can find says 18 but i didnt look hard) then I dont see how a positive antibody test now says you had it when you were ill in december, when you could quite easily have had an asymptomatic case in the last 5 months.

Personally Ive had 2 bad coughs this year, one at christmas where I was really feverish, one in march which progressed exactly as corona (I assumed was corona) My antibody is negative. But either way there have been at least 2 bad viruses this year. Or I am not immune and have had it twice which I suppose is a possibility

How it progressed in my hospital - we were swabbing for a while, swabbing admissions for a couple of weeks -nothing. Then we had our first case, then a couple more and then bam. It was just climbing and climbing,within literally a couple of weeks we were overwhelmed.

I just dont see how it acted like that when it did if it had been prevelent in the community for months. it was honestly like a tidalwave.

Or they have either some immunity or resistance and our current tests don't show that

Yes quite possibly, and presence of antibodies doesn’t mean you can’t be reinfected. I should have put that in quote marks. But that is definitely how a lot of them feel - there are some very upset HCPs in my department right now.

My main point was that a negative antibody test doesn’t mean you haven’t had covid.

Im not totally sure how it would have managed to spread amongst healthy populations and not make its way into carehomes/vunerable populations. Bearing in mind how easily infections spread in hospitals, and how many elderly are discharged to care homes etc. And how it escalated as it did. Someone comes into hospital its quite easy to spread it to everyone else in their bay.

Heaving shopping malls before Christmas. And everyone visiting family for Christmas. Travelling the length of the country on packed trains. Big family groups of 3 and 4 generations all crammed into one room. Singing your heart out at carol services at churches. Visiting people in care homes for christmas. If this thread was any sort of indication more people had it in december than in March! excess deaths would have been through the roof by mid january.

Thinking about it I was very, very ill at the end of October and for most of November. I had three lots of antibiotics and had to go to hospital twice because my hypertension rocketed. The GP couldn’t understand why my cough wouldn’t shift with the antibiotics. I do remember coughing fits and having to try and sleep upright. I felt awful. I’ve just read back a text I sent and I told my friend my head was pounding too. Hmm.

Of course it could have been another Illness but it’s certainly food for thought.

It was 180/125 and that was with already high medication. I should also say they haven’t found a reason for the spike in BP either

Just found this but unfortunately I can’t read it as I don’t subscribe.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-may-have-been-spreading-in-wuhan-since-august-claim-researchers-5w5t6s9k9