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?

So is it possible that we had covid earlier (end of 2019) but the one we had that created all the deaths (March/April 2020) was a variant of the initial strain?

Like the Kent one that caused another serious wave of infections and deaths?

I guess it's fair enough to assume the one they first identified was the initial strain but I also assume like everything scientific and medical it's hard to prove all facts and we can only act on data we have?

I'm convinced it went through our cat rescue centre in January last year. It started with an animal care volunteer who caught something nasty from a visitor who had just returned from China for Christmas and who became ill. Her mother ended up in hospital for weeks with a pneumonia type illness that didn't respond to treatment. She became ill with covid type symptoms and it soon went round about 10 other staff - all of whom were off work for two weeks or more. And none of those people have gone on to catch Covid since then. Nothing can be proved, but I'm convinced.

I had something nasty in mid december 2019. Fever, nasty hacking cough, lethargy, and it went away for a few days then came back worse. It had me laid up in bed for a couple of weeks. It was going around the area where I lived, pretty much everybody you spoke to had had it or knew somebody who’d had it, and a lot of people were really unwell for weeks, if not months. I know several people who were hospitalised.

I’m convinced it was covid. The symptom profile was the same and it went around like a dose of salts where I lived but the kids didn’t seem to really get it. DS was a bit off colour for a day I think, had one day off school then went back, not a bother on him.

I’ve been fine since, and so has DS, and we have moved to an area with very high infection rates. Funnily enough the area I lived in in winter 19 had a very low infection rate through most of the pandemic, and I’m convinced it’s because we had it before it all kicked off. It’s a very student area with lots of foreign students coming in and out, so it would be exactly where you’d expect a novel virus to spread to early.

I had something very nasty mid December 19 which does match the symptoms of covid. Obviously I have no idea whether it was or not, but wouldn't be at all surprised to hear in the future that it has been around longer than originally reported.

I had an awful continuous cough in December 2019. Couldn't get out of bed, had time off work (I think they thought it was at it!) and I as tired for weeks after, although I was pregnant so tiredness could have been down to being pregnant. Dh then had an awful "chest infection" a few weeks later. Never seen anyone so ill with a chest infection before, he was floored for weeks.

Yes, dh and I had the same virus late November 2019, severe head and neck ache, shivering, high temp, aching everywhere, especially hips and back, couldn’t function and barely able to walk. The gp at the time said flu, but having had flu before I knew this was similar but different, so just assumed it was because it was a different strain. It still could be, but really does make me wonder. The interesting thing is though that I had my first jab, and was hit with side effects within a short time, all exactly the same as I had felt during that illness, but milder, especially the headache and bone pain. I am sure it must have been circulating then.

I had something the doctors decided was flu in December 2019. It was like no flu I’ve had in the past. I was a fit and healthy 32 year old and ended up in hospital. It affected my heart, my liver, I couldn’t eat at all for 8 weeks and had post viral fatigue for another 4 months. When I heard about COVID I did wonder but thought it would be much too soon for that but I am not sure now. Dh had just come back from a conference in New York with many different nationalities attending so I may have caught it from him although if I did he must have been asymptotic as he was fine.

So what I'd like to know is how many of us who think they had it before March 2020 went on to get covid.

What I'd like to know is

Do you think you had it in that time period?
How many in your family had it out of total?
Have you subsequently had a positive test?
Were you symptomatic?
We're the symptoms more or less severe?
And have you been exposed to someone who has it confirmed by test? - with a little detail of how it came about. My 5 year old son has it carries more weight than my test and trace app asked me to isolate but I can't think where I was exposed.

For me it would be
Yes
2/5
No
N/a
N/a
N/a
No

My GP reckons I had it in February. I had a cough and could barely walk across the room without stopping to get my breath but at the time I didn't see the GP as we'd not really heard of it.

So is it possible that we had covid earlier (end of 2019) but the one we had that created all the deaths (March/April 2020) was a variant of the initial strain?

It's a reasonable theory. If it was less communicable, it could have spread steadily amongst only very close contacts, many chains of transmission would have burned out, slowing the spread, and keeping in out of or to a minimum in higher risk institutions e.g. hospitals and care homes.

Basically, if that theory is correct, the first wave was younger people doing it really rough in the privacy of their own homes, then battling on at work, with some short hospital admissions, medical staff noticing a mystery virus and young hospital admissions but seemingly with no mechanism to report any epidemiological concerns, and older victims who died dismissed as "flu".

we have a local private school that did an exchange with a wuhan school in November. Half the kids were sick, and then it swept through the school. The earliest mentioned official case in UK I thought was in Mayfield, not far from us - where they looked back at his lung scans from December and saw the familaiar 'glass lung'. Thats not far from the mentioned school.

I think it was definately in Sussex early, which could also account for why East Sussex has spectacularly low cases during the first peak before the new kent varient changed that.

My Mum and Dad were extremely poorly over New Year with a nasty virus that was exactly COVID symptoms.

A couple they are friends with came down with the symptoms early January 2020. The wife has some nasty underlying health conditions and ended up in hospital.

The wife took part in the government antibody testing programme and tested positive for antibodies.

She hadn’t been ill, other than the bug early Jan 2020 so unless she had it asymptomatically (not sure how likely that would be given her health conditions) she would have had it early Jan 2020.

Her GP contacted her a while ago to look into it but she hasn’t heard anything from them since

Thanks picsinred that was my thinking.

Using the info supplied about how it's not unusual for viruses to mutate to become more infectious (and sometimes less deadly) it made sense this was a coronavirus that travelled around for a few months and then transformed into something more infectious.

Also we know the Spanish flu hit young people badly in second wave and this (if it was an initial covid strain) seemed to really affect school children (absences were nearly 6 times the 5 yr average) in December and then elderly were hit most during what we thought was first wave and then children seems to become silent spreaders in second (third?) wave.

I'm obviously just thinking using what I've heard (my degree is not medical or scientific!) but it doesn't seem that it's not possible to have been the case - rather it would be as hard to prove it either way?

I had a fluey, coughy cold at the end of 2019 so I was interested to hear a GP on the radio say that there were a lot of cases of OC43 about, which is a coronavirus that presents a bit like Covid-19.

I thought it was likely that I had had that and hoped it would confer some cross-immunity for Covid. As far as I know I haven't had Covid.

It is possible that a lot of people had OC43 in the winter of 19/20 and, hopefully, may have developed some immunity to Covid when it popped up. If that's the case it would probably be hard to distinguish when the change came from one coronavirus to the other as there was hardly any testing.

I believe it was knocking around and reached tipping point into a pandemic in the spring

Does anyone know whta the excess average deaths were from Oct 19 to Feb 20?

Just wondered if it was around that early, would it have shown up that way. Or is the thinking that more younger people had it at that time, before it started causing deaths in elderly and vulnerable from March?

My boss was in hospital with sudden pneumonia in Jan last year. Only young. Came out after a few days though but we all thought it was very strange for his age as he had to go on oxygen. Then several people at work had coughs that lasted several weeks and one young woman actually collapsed at work due to hers.

@SazCat

Does anyone know whta the excess average deaths were from Oct 19 to Feb 20?

Just wondered if it was around that early, would it have shown up that way. Or is the thinking that more younger people had it at that time, before it started causing deaths in elderly and vulnerable from March?

Well my thinking as posted above is that maybe we had a less deadly stain that mutated to become more dangerous. Maybe the fact deaths weren't too high didn't raise heckles but the unusual about of RV definitely did.

@SazCat

Does anyone know whta the excess average deaths were from Oct 19 to Feb 20?

Just wondered if it was around that early, would it have shown up that way. Or is the thinking that more younger people had it at that time, before it started causing deaths in elderly and vulnerable from March?

I don't think there was an excess average. However, might it have simply replaced some of the flu deaths in the way it has this year.

Read about half the thread but phone about to die and wanted to post this. Apologies if it's a duplication.

There was a verified UK covid death on Jan 30th, 5 weeks before the official first death. The gentleman in question had not travelled nor had any known contact with someone who had travelled, so it seems likely this was community transmission, so it feels pretty likely covod was circulating for many many weeks before the official start.

I wonder what they'll uncover when enough time has passed for the truth to be a bit less terrifying and proof of multiple failures?

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/04/daughter-calls-for-kent-man-to-be-recognised-as-uks-first-covid-victim

*we have a local private school that did an exchange with a wuhan school in November. Half the kids were sick, and then it swept through the school. The earliest mentioned official case in UK I thought was in Mayfield, not far from us - where they looked back at his lung scans from December and saw the familaiar 'glass lung'. Thats not far from the mentioned school.

I think it was definately in Sussex early, which could also account for why East Sussex has spectacularly low cases during the first peak before the new kent varient changed that*

The girls school in Mayfield has a huge amount of students attending from China, and a smaller proportion from South America.

East Sussex did escape the worst of the first wave, having had a bad respiratory virus sweep through schools etc in Dec 19 - Feb 20. We teachers joked about it being that year’s norovirus/scarlet fever/chicken pox, though later all queried covid. Then the new variant knocked us for six in the autumn of 2020 and we all doubted ourselves again.

I’d love to know for sure.

Wow, that's really interesting- I'm sure local people would love to know for sure - it's a shame there isn't any actual research being done - or maybe there is?

My mum had a terrible cough in Dec 2019 that left her feeling so ill. She lives alone and I only popped in as far as her kitchen to drop off shopping for her. She isolated by default as she was too ill to go anywhere or see anyone. She ended up on steroids and the doctor said they were concerned she was beginning with pneumonia but luckily the steroids seemed to work. She was however left feeling completely and utterly drained for several months and had a couple of weird blood test results that didn't really show anything conclusive. I'm convinced she had covid and long covid.

Yes, I think my youngest child and I had it in December 2019. She was poorly with a fever and fatigue, but right as rain after 48 hours or so. I was floored for weeks - I would do the school run and go back to bed, coughed until I vomited many times. If I hadn’t had a flu jab in October I’d have said it was flu. No one else in the household was ill at all, despite me being symptomatic for weeks. I refused to see the GP on the basis that it wasn’t a chest infection (not productive, no temp) and it was clearly viral so I just had to ride it out.

I’ve not tested positive at all during the pandemic, and I’ve had direct contact with confirmed positive cases (nurse), but no one else in the household has either.

My guess is that we’ll never know for sure whether it was here earlier or not!

I think I had it early November 2019. we live next door to university with lots of Chinese. My doctor's is actually the university practice. When I went to get antibiotics there were about 20 Chinese students and me, all coughing like crazy.