'Coronavirus circulating in Italy since September'

[GreenOwlBlue]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-italy-anitbodies-covid-study-b1723243.html

So, of 1000 asymptomatic people who took part in a lung cancer screening programme, 111 were found to already have Covid antibodies when the samples were tested. Wow.

What I don't understand is how the virus can circulate unnoticed for so long, when we've seen 2 big peaks involving large numbers hospitalised/dying?

Interesting stuff.

I've not seen anyone deny that it was here last December. It would have been vanishingly rare though so most people who think they had it back then are wrong.

With frequent direct flights from Wuhan to the UK and all over Europe, and a highly communicable viral illness, it wouldn't have been that rare unless we Brits are made of pure virus-repelling magic.

If we had community spread in December then it won’t have been ‘vanishingly’ rare.

The first deaths here had no travel links so they must have caught it in the community. At least three weeks before as that’s the usual timeline.

Cases were also popping up (and deaths) all over the country not just in one ‘hotspot’ like Lombardy in Italy. This to me implies it was quite widespread in the community by the time we saw the first deaths and had been circulating, even at low levels for some time before.

I don't know why anyone would think it was rare - it's very obvious from what we know about covid that for every serious case/hospitalisation/death there are potentially hundreds if not thousands of milder/asymptomatic cases. Therefore it's entirely possible for covid to be spreading quite widely but serious cases and deaths to be spread out to an extent that no connection was made between them or for them to be attributed to flu. That's a very very likely scenario in fact, it totally makes sense.

I think they are going to have serious trouble assessing how many people have been infected, because people with positive tests are giving negative for antibododies after a while, which does not mean that they will catch it again though (some small re-infection rate has been observed, I know).
I actually have hope that more people that we think have been infected and now have defences against the virus, even if they do not show in the antibody test.

Yes I’m hoping there will be some t-cell immunity like with SARS. This could explain why some people in the same households don’t infect each other.

I saw my consultant at the end of December and they questioned me about my illness, probably because I was coughing my insides out in their room. I'd had a flu jab two months prior, they asked about fever/chills which I confirmed how high the fever got.

It's on my notes now that I had an unknown upper respiratory viral illness in December and I live and work where there's a high amount of foreign tourists. I don't have long Covid but the fatigue which is one symptom of the illness I've got hence seeing a consultant, has never quite been as under control as it was.

Surely they do infect each other, but it is not showing in the way if symptoms. Or the immune system is that good as sorting the virus that not even the PCR test is showing it.
This thing keeps spreading through lockdowns, SD, mask wearing....
I cannot get my head aroind that it will not get to people living under the same roof!

@Delatron

If we had community spread in December then it won’t have been ‘vanishingly’ rare.

The first deaths here had no travel links so they must have caught it in the community. At least three weeks before as that’s the usual timeline.

Cases were also popping up (and deaths) all over the country not just in one ‘hotspot’ like Lombardy in Italy. This to me implies it was quite widespread in the community by the time we saw the first deaths and had been circulating, even at low levels for some time before.

It was seeded into the U.K. 1300 times in the end of Feb/ early March. Presumably from people travelling into major airport hubs and then travelling home. Which would probably explain the difference between here & Lombardy.

IIRC the theory is that the outbreak in Lombardy is thought to have been from people/a person crossing the border from Germany and it spreading out from there.

I thought even in the same household there’s still only 40% chance of spreading it (this was mentioned in another thread). So it’s not just people are showing no symptoms for some reason they are not spreading it. Then there are superspreaders who spread it to loads.

My mum said in late January that a lot of people in her village had "flu". I remember thinking gosh and I'd been telling people to get the flu vaccine last season because I'd read that they had got the right strains so it was effective. So later on we wondered if they'd had covid instead.

However, nobody died or was hospitalised. And she didn't get whatever it was.

My kids had a really nasty bug in November 2019 - it wiped out almost half the kids in their school plus some teachers & many parents - symptoms were diarrhoea, headache, really high fever, aches, fatigue, vomiting and a horrendous hacking cough which lasted weeks. I presumed it was flu or something at the time, but we all were quite shocked how it ripped through school & looking back it does make me wonder if it was actually covid.

@PicsInRed

I've not seen anyone deny that it was here last December. It would have been vanishingly rare though so most people who think they had it back then are wrong.

With frequent direct flights from Wuhan to the UK and all over Europe, and a highly communicable viral illness, it wouldn't have been that rare unless we Brits are made of pure virus-repelling magic.

Then explain how practically nobody out of the 100,000 people tested for covid in February had it?

Covid is not actually that infectious outside of super spreaders - about 80% of people don't pass it on to anybody, even people they live with. If a super spreader doesn't pass it on to another potential super spreader then the outbreak will probably fizzle out. At low disease prevalence this could happen many times. There's also the nature of exponential growth to consider - at the start the numbers are very low and they can stay that way for a long time before the numbers suddenly get very high, very quickly. Or you speed things up by seeding hundreds of cases all around the country all at once by letting everyone go skiing in the covid capital of Europe.
These threads come up all the time and loads of people think they had it before March. If everyone who thought they'd had it back then actually did then we somehow missed a wave bigger than the one we had in spring. That's not to say that nobody did, just very few people did.

Were 100,000 people tested in Feb? I thought we had hardly any tests? Or was it just those in a hospital setting?

Nobody was getting any tests in Feb. There could have been lots of people with no travel links or bad enough to go to hospital who would have been missed.

@Delatron

If we had community spread in December then it won’t have been ‘vanishingly’ rare.

The first deaths here had no travel links so they must have caught it in the community. At least three weeks before as that’s the usual timeline.

Cases were also popping up (and deaths) all over the country not just in one ‘hotspot’ like Lombardy in Italy. This to me implies it was quite widespread in the community by the time we saw the first deaths and had been circulating, even at low levels for some time before.

Or everyone went skiing in Lombardy at half term and seeded it all around the country at once then we had some large events like Cheltenham festival and Krufts just to be sure it was really well dispersed. There is occasional community spread in New Zealand and covid us certainly vanishingly rare there.

Yes those events greatly increased transmission.

I thought we were discussing whether COVID was here before Jan and from all the evidence we have seen on this thread it most certainly was and in other countries too.

Your post @QueenStromba has helped explain why we didn’t see exponential growth until March yet there were cases here way before then. Just no big super spreaders events. Low level spread for a few months before it took off...

Then explain how practically nobody out of the 100,000 people tested for covid in February had it?

The early tests were rubbish, so that's probably why. Our own patient zero was an elderly man from Kent without recent travel history. It's in chest films and sewage samples from France, Brazil and Italy in November and December. It was in the community - and to be identified materially in sewage samples in two different countries it must have been widespread in the community by that time. We know that the European strain has mutated to be more contagious. It hadn't got a hold in the care homes until after Christmas, possibly around the same time it mutated and couldn't be contained. Once it got hold in the care homes - whoof, like a fire bomb gone off. This is where the bulk of deaths occurred across Europe.

@ginberry4

My kids had a really nasty bug in November 2019 - it wiped out almost half the kids in their school plus some teachers & many parents - symptoms were diarrhoea, headache, really high fever, aches, fatigue, vomiting and a horrendous hacking cough which lasted weeks. I presumed it was flu or something at the time, but we all were quite shocked how it ripped through school & looking back it does make me wonder if it was actually covid.

I had covid like symptoms at the start of December but not the loss of taste/smell. I took an antibody test in June but it was negative.

I am just wondering if your kid's school has had an outbreak of covid this term and if any of the people affected this term also had the bug you mention last November?

I always wonder how it got into so many ski resorts in the first place. Surely people from different countries had to transport it there in the first place from their own communities for so many people to catch it and bring it back here over half term?

I imagine apres-ski activities from what we know about the virus now make it an excellent environment for spreading:
Indoors, no ventilation, low humidity (presumably with open fires etc.) tightly packed groups etc.

@Jrobhatch29

I always wonder how it got into so many ski resorts in the first place. Surely people from different countries had to transport it there in the first place from their own communities for so many people to catch it and bring it back here over half term?

A good point.

How did it get there and why would a ski resort be anymore a likely breeding ground than a stag hen do or nightclubs with 1000s in a packed environment.

My question is why was the UK hit so late?

My question is why was the UK hit so late?

Doctors returned from the ski field to their hospital and care home rounds? Teachers and families returned to school - families visited nana on the weekend? I dont think we were hit late - I think we were suddenly hit hard in our most vulnerable spot, our Achilles heel - our ability to keep our very much loved but highly vulnerable people alive longer than others around the world are able too. And they all died at once.

If this is the case is it possible that wuhan was not the epicentre and just the first place to find the virus?

I had something very similar to covid symtoms in December in The Bristol area... Interestingly there was a whole thread at the time with loads of people from. Bristol coming down with a horrible flu like illness with loss of taste smell And an awful cough...

European half terms also vary across the continent - could explain some of the difference in timing in different areas.

@Forgetmenot157

I had something very similar to covid symtoms in December in The Bristol area... Interestingly there was a whole thread at the time with loads of people from. Bristol coming down with a horrible flu like illness with loss of taste smell And an awful cough...

Yep, me, workmates, kids at school. I distinctly remember wondering to myself "why are all these people so sickly"...and then down I went 😂

If this is the case is it possible that wuhan was not the epicentre and just the first place to find the virus?

I don't know, but China sure believed it to be. Locked that place clean off from the rest of China.