wondering if the start of the UK pandemic was earlier than officially disclosed?

[firthy85]

hello. just seen a zombie thread from 1 january last year with people talking about having this awful hacking cough, lethargy and vomiting. posters saying that they had been suffering with this virus since october/november 2019 but was just put down to a normal seasonal chest infection. when the media started to report that coronavirus had come to the UK and we saw the first cases wondering if any of the posters over on that other thread or in fact you, got a test when you started to hear about it?

A horrible respiratory illness went through my office in December 2019 and I was quite unwell over Christmas and not properly well until the end of February. I did a Covid antibody test in summer 2020 and nothing, so I assume we all just had a bad virus.

Both me and my husband came down with a virus on the same day in late January ‘20. We had horrendously sore throats, dry hacking coughs and were so lethargic. This dragged on for at least six weeks.
I will do whatever I can to avoid a GP or hospital but there were times when I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, I was really struggling and wondered if I should go to A&E.

Myself, DH and DS1 were really ill late nov/dec 2019 with some sort of respiratory illness. We assumed a bad case of the flu, but I actually took DS1 to the doctor several times because he was so unwell with his chest I thought he had an infection

FIL and MIL were then seriously unwell with the same virus over Xmas 2019

We’ve all wondered if it was an early variant

We had really bad virus and hacking cough bug here in November last year.

I'm sure I read somewhere that that winter the number of absences from schools for children with respiratory virus was higher than average and absences were longer than average?

So is your argument that the virus was of low contagion back then - a mystery variant, never documented, that only infected healthy people who frequent internet forums, carefully avoiding infecting the elderly lest it kill anyone and be discovered!

And despite being contagious enough to infect all these people, sometimes sweeping through a family/workplace/school, it nonetheless managed NOT to not become an epidemic.

Phew - they should have called it the Schrodig, not Covid!

DH who is hardly ever ill had pneumonia in November 2019 shortly after we had travelled to an international amateur sporting event. Which did make me wonder. But it doesn't really make sense for covid to have been spreading widely at the time because if you look at excess deaths these don't really kick off until March 2020.

I had been on a cruise early November 2019, with travellers from around the world and a high proportion of chinese guests, including one large tour group of 40 that did all the same excursions as us. We also travelled through two major airports.Towards the end of November I was so ill with a respiratory infection, I coughed for four weeks solid, slept on the sofa for two weeks as I was regularly coughing myself sick overnight. My abs test came back negative, however I really would not be surprised if I had the virus back in late November.

I had ‘pneumonia’ in late October and now I’m adamant it was covid. A few others in my work got really ill at the same time with flu like symptoms

My DD had it on NYE and was in bed for a fortnight with all the classic symptoms. she has antibodies and also reacted badly to the vaccine, despite not being unwell any time inbvetween and totally isolating as was CEV

I know a woman who was hospitalised Christmas 2019 with flu and pneumonia. She has a many Covid antibodies she has been donating plasma for over a year. Seems obvious to me.

oh, she also had long covid and is only now beginning to feel slightly better

It maybe didn't get to the elderly until much later. Those that came into contact with tourism events were the first to suffer, the head at the nursing home I knew said there was a tipping point for norovirus in homes and hospitals cases wise. Perhaps it's the same with covid

My mother just reminded me she had a cough starting in June 2019 and it lasted over 7 months. I remember! She couldn’t shake it and she had cough and coughing up mucus for months and when we started having reports of a virus in Wuhan we were out in a cafe and she had a coughing fit and staff had to offer her water. I’m now convinced she had it. Scarier still I was pregnant with ds1 then!

We had virus sweep through our office late January to February. Loads of coughing & my colleague had 3 courses of antibiotics that didn't clear their "chest infection". They tested positive for antibodies but shielded from lockdown 1 (& weren't sick in that time).
One of the managers was ill for weeks after his round of it & his doctor told him not to go anywhere with large crowds even when he felt better, as his immune system was compromised (although covid was known about at that time & it may have been a precaution).

I had to sleep sat upright for almost a week and I kept waking up feeling like I was drowning/suffocating. (DP was also poorly & sounded like he had fluid on his lungs).

Could have been a covid strain. Could have just been some other nasty virus.
Interestingly when DPs ex's family (incl. SDC) all got symptoms / positive cases me & DP didn't even have a sniffle although SDC had been with us 7 days prior to EXs test.

My very healthy 11 year old at the time, had a virus that ticked all the covid boxes in late nov / early dec 2019 .
She was totally floored , between myself and her father we never left her unattended , she was so ill, she had a week off school and i know i sent her back too early .
At the same time there was a large amount of kids off at her school with the same .
My friend and her family had it at the same time ,same symptoms , really ill ,she believes it was covid .

Absolutely. I was overwhelmed with exhaustion (so much that I fell asleep on the sofa while dinner was cooking and the food was black. I sleep through the beeper. I'm known for my amazing hearing).
I sat down at the weekend, fell asleep in front of daughter and her mate (I never do that so embarrassing).
My partner touched my fleece hoody. It was soaking... On the outside my sweat had gone through. I was freezing. Took a week off work.
February 2020.
My daughter had half of all her classes off sick at any one time between December 2019 and Feb 2020.
People at my office coughing profusely from Nov to Feb.
Defo earlier than reported.

I remember that thread and think I posted, a group of us had it in December 2019, I was using my mums inhaler despite never suffering from asthma, took a few weeks to recover. More than likely covid but who knows.

November 19. DH and I coughed our way through 4 weeks of it. I'd never had a cough before.

There was something about, I was unwell from Boxing Day 2019. Went to the GP when it didn't clear and she said "oh you've got this that's going round, seen loads of it"
Ended up on antibiotics for a chest infection and was off work for 2 weeks but unwell for about a month

I remember talking to another parent in early Feb 2020 who works in children's A&E. She said they'd been really busy with very ill kids with breathing problems and how strange it was.

And yet, many many people were hospitalised and symptomatic, but tested negative for Covid - there were an awful lot of other very nasty bugs going around, nasty enough that people were in hospital for them, so you could well have been extremely ill with one of them, but it still might not have been Covid. It might have been - I wouldn't be surprised if there were cases here earlier than officially reported - but I think there is also a very big chance that many people were hit by some other horrible viruses going around then. And of course, many people certainly did have it after it was here, and were never tested for it because they didn't need to go to hospital, or only had a mildly. But the huge numbers of really ill people who had other things so tested negative means that it's really not as certain as is sometimes assumed that all the illnesses from that time, even if really bad, were necessarily Covid.

I too had a horrible bug in Jan last year, it was 2 weeks before I got married on Feb 1st. I remember thinking I would have had to cancel the weeding if I had felt like that then. I had all of the symptoms and was in bed for 2 days which I cannot ever remember doing in my adult life. However I had the antibody test some months later (nurse) and it turns out I have never had it. Not saying you are wrong just that there were some nasty bugs around too early last year.

The first official registered U.K. covid death was 30th Jan 2020 - confirmed by doctors from blood samples and scans and is on the ONS website (section 7).

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/december2020#death-occurrences-in-december-2020-and-year-to-date

From reading his story in the news, he caught it from his daughter who had it late December. No-one in the family had any links to China. So it was definitely here late 2019, but obviously unknown how widespread.

Me and a number of colleagues, friends and family members were all ill end of Nov 2019. Very similar symptoms to Covid. I remember the cough, because I tend to get very chesty coughs as a smoker, but this was so dry and lasted for weeks. Could have been flu, but none of us haven’t had covid at all, despite most of us continuing to work, kids being at school, still seeing family etc. so it does make me wonder if we may have immunity.

My dad was hospitalised in November December 19 with bad cough. He was coughing so much he was passing out and hurting himself. No antibiotics worked and he needs an inhaler now. He has generally poor health and is elderly, so has a lot of hospital appointments so could have caught it at one of these appointments.

But viruses of all types, including flu, DO go round every year. Just because you had a bad cough, doesn't mean it wasn't just a cough, or flu, or pneumonia.