COVID in UK in Dec 2019

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news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-daughter-of-uk-man-who-died-from-covid-19-in-january-attacks-china-for-cover-up-12067060

The above is about an elderly man, who hadn't left the UK, became ill in December, and died in January. COVID has now been found in his lung tissue.

The assumption seems to he that he contracted COVID in the community, long before it was presumed to even be in the community. He seems to have passed it on to his granddaughter, who presumably would also have unknowingly transmitted it further in the community.

With chest film and faecal samples now putting COVID in Europe in Autumn 2019 - or even possibly as early as March 2019 - surely there are some pretty big questions that need to be asked and answered by the government?

Yup dont doubt it. Partner and all colleagues at work had the high temp and coughs late December as did daughter (asthmatic). Me and younger daughter had a few days of feeling tired. Workplace right next to international halls of residences, lots of Chinese students and the University it twinned with Wuhan University!

Not a doubt in my mind this was it.

I have no doubt.

Do we know excessive death figures for the period around Dec 19 to Feb 20?

I'd expect Covid to have been here sooner than the official first case, but it seems strange that it all just exploded in March (exponentially from first official case) in terms of cases and deaths and hospitals being overwhelmed.

Hospitals are always very busy in winter but if we had Covid spreading without restriction for months on end in addition to usual viruses and illness, then would people not have been dropping like flies and hospitals unable to cope, before March?

@annabel85

Do we know excessive death figures for the period around Dec 19 to Feb 20?

I'd expect Covid to have been here sooner than the official first case, but it seems strange that it all just exploded in March (exponentially from first official case) in terms of cases and deaths and hospitals being overwhelmed.

Hospitals are always very busy in winter but if we had Covid spreading without restriction for months on end in addition to usual viruses and illness, then would people not have been dropping like flies and hospitals unable to cope, before March?

Perhaps people became ill, stayed home, and didnt catch flu. Perhaps the flu vaccine was particularly effective and early COVID deaths were attributed to flu, without bumping the overall death rate to a noticable level. Perhaps early cases were mainly the young and healthy - i.e. the same pattern as we presently see, with a spike in cases but not deaths.

Who knows - but it was here, and in the non travelling community, outside cities.

Anecdotally, a similar illness was noticed late last year, including in GP practice, we just didn't know what it was. There was a fascinating thread bumped a while back, obvious COVID symptoms, but before it was "meant" to be here. I'll see if I can find it.

Surely the further back it goes the less certain that we can be that this is a Chinese cover up rather than something that had been spreading unnoticed globally for months but happened to really take hold, possibly mutating a little in Wuhan before being officially noticed.

Here we go. From November - note the symptoms.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3748017-Anyone-else-got-this-horrendous-cough-and-cold

My friend had it then, there's NO doubt in my mind. Symptoms were identical and she suffered for weeks. Had various courses of antibiotics and ended up with nubulisers and pumps. Hacking hacking persistent cough where she couldn't catch her breath between coughs, and her DP and 3 kids caught it in quick succession, kids mildly but the DP was the same. She caught it from her friend who had been travelling.

I think the European ski resorts were absolutely rife with it in February. Surely it must have been circulating there for some time to have been so widespread within the community there. I don't know anyone who went skiing in February in Europe who didn't come back ill. I think it was the return of skiers in February that accelerated the spread here but I too think it must have been here at least at the beginning of 2020 but in smaller numbers.

The DM version says he was hospitalised in jan i think. So although i do agree covid probably was here in dec, he could have gone into hospital with say flu and died of covid as we know it spreads very well there.

Also what MH was saying about reinfection being detected but possibly asymptomatic could easily be true of load of hcp.

I have no doubt it was here in December, but what I don't understand is why did it go up exponentially in March and not earlier?

Yes i think snow and low temps is a particular risk as it preserves viruses. So all the touch points etc.

Are we able to get reliable antibody tests yet? I thought that was being prioritised weeks ago?

We had close contact with family members of someone who was ill and now thinks it was covid. (She travels internationally For work and was I’ll following one of her trips) Ds was Then really Poorly, to the extent I nearly phoned an ambulance one night, temperature, cough, couldn’t catch his breathe. Two of my friends then came down with something similar after Ds had what ever he had. And although I was nowhere near as bad as Ds was, I had a cough from December that wouldn’t shift until well in to lockdown. Might have been covid, but we will never know. All the symptoms he had, I would be straight on the phone to book a test If he had them now and would disbelieve the result if it came back negative!

This man died at the end of January, and the virus was only identified in samples taken later in his illness. Therefore it's quite possible that he caught covid in hospital, whilst he was already very unwell. It's irresponsible (or more likely, a bit thick) to jump straight from a January 30th death to "this was rampant in December" as described in The Sun.

There will be far more research done into the origins of this virus. Best to wait until that happens, rather than jumping to conclusions now.

Wow that thread from last year is crazy to read.

Interesting thread, thanks for sharing. I suspect myself and my DD and her BF all had is in January, My DD had to go to hospital as her kidneys ended up damaged and they couldnt get her temperature down, I was excessively tired and achy and her BF kept sparking high temperatures and had a dry continuous cough, we all had recently returned from abroad (in fact in the hospital with my DD we were asked if her had been abroad as they couldnt find what was wrong with her), she literally thought she was dying at one stage she was so unwell.. then she got better and then this virus appears from China 4 weeks later, just seems a coincidence as especially her BFs symptoms were so similar to the ones listed to be COVID.

I'm convinced one of my DD's and I had it in December. We went on a girly trip awya for a couple of days and when we got back I was more ill than I've ever been. I lost my sense of taste for 3 weeks and my sense of smell for over a week. My asthma was far less controlled than normal and twice I was nearly hospitalised. DD was in bed for 5 days and said she felt like she'd been hit by a bus. She lost her sense of taste for several days. She didn't even go from her bed to window to watch the new year fireworks. My GP was convinced we both had flu (I was that unwell they actually did a house visit), but has since said he'd be interested to see an antibodies test because of the taste/smell thing.

I had what looks like a text book covid late November until late December. We'd been to Harry potter studios, hundreds of people inside and touching things 😬.
GP gave me a blood test and they couldn't pin point what it was.

Are we able to get reliable antibody tests yet?

Some have had antibody tests through a trial. People that thought they had had the virus were getting negative results, which could be an inaccurate result, could be that they had not had the virus, or that they have had it but did not develop antibodies.

Our failure to test in the early stages is a massive failure. We've so little data to long at medium and longer term implications of the virus.

@HairyToity

I have no doubt it was here in December, but what I don't understand is why did it go up exponentially in March and not earlier?

Temp staff moving between care homes - spread from home to home, infecting immobile and highly vulnerable patients, who were then automatically deemed not for treatment/resuscitation.

Ok this is interesting, last August, family bereavement so could pinpoint dates if need be, had no choice to soldier on, I had an unexpected wheezy chest, felt drained, thought I would need steriod gas, lasted about 2 weeks then gradually got better but felt a bit unfit climbing house stairs etc for a bit.

March this year 10 days before lockdown, was convinced I had lost my sense of smell and taste, could smell/taste morning coffee and can usually smell the coffee two floors up.

Perhaps I have had it twice and second time was milder. But it seems no one else caught it, well perhaps but I symptoms.

I mean will never know so it doesn't really help matters at all.

@HairyToity

I have no doubt it was here in December, but what I don't understand is why did it go up exponentially in March and not earlier?

I think that could be because of the length of time it takes people to die.

BIL had Covid in March. He was ill for a week, thought it was flu. Then lost his sense of smell and was tested. 10 days after he got ill he ended up in hospital overnight. He was properly unwell for another week. Thankfully he got better, but if people were slowly going downhill, then ending up in ICU, then some time after that dying it could easily take 7/8/9 weeks from being infected to dying.

So if it was building up and spreading from December time, then I think it's understandable that it would be March/April by the time it had spread enough and hit people hard enought that there were significant deaths beginning then.

Clearly the early efforts worldwide were hindered by the Chinese who were in a position to detect the existence of a new virus but who were not willing to share that information with others. But I'm not sure the UK government has much to answer for in not doing anything about a virus that was not known to exist, especially considering there was absolutely nobody within the NHS suggesting the possibility of a new virus circulating. The government is made up of politicians and not medical experts and cannot reasonably be expected to be aware of the condition of every patient in every hospital unless they are tipped off by the front line medics as to the possibility that something is circulating.

I had something with Covid-like symptoms in September 2019. Ended up as a bad chest infection, and I was barely able to breathe.

It could be that it was Covid (maybe in a weaker mutation?), or it could be that this other horrible cold/cough was doing the rounds and therefore mild Covid cases initially didn't trigger any alarm bells as they were mistaken for this.

I guess that for a virus to be identified, you first have to have an unusual number of people with unusual symptoms, all identified by either the same doctor or by a group of doctors (a doctor who sees one patient with a "strange flu" will probably not take it any further; it will need several reports before someone starts joining the dots). Since a lot of people who get Covid are asymptomatic, it could have been circulating for a good while before enough people got seriously ill to trigger an investigation.

I suspect that it was here well before the first official cases, but for some reason it reached a tipping point in Feb/March - could have been the weather, ski trips returning home, a more virulent mutation, or even just a few people catching it who really spread it. Eg if I had it, chances are I'd give it to DH and the kids, but that would be it. Whereas if someone working in a shop had it, they could easily pass it to 100s of people very quickly.

Reading that thread from November now is insane!!