When did Cov19 start in UK.

[whittlesfordok]

I know someone with all the classic symptoms back in December. Location is Cambridge and she is working for an organisation with contacts and staff from China and Wuhan.
With reports saying it was around in Wuhan early than so far reported https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...y-Games.html&usg=AOvVaw2tlHGZmFGoyFC6C__ThEek

what do people think

 

[yorksrob]

I think that given France apparently discovered a case back from December (from re-testing existing samples) the chances are that it was here then as well.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Interesting you say that. I came down with something in mid Jan. Started off with a sore throat that in two/three days, I could barely swallow. After about 5 days, I was feeling worse with a temperature/fever (sweats), massively inflamed sinuses and a tight dry cough that just would not expectorate. I decided to work from home and I moved into the spare room for a week so my other half could get some sleep (and not in that way ). I'm a very fit person (RHR about 40-45) and usually shake off stuff in 4-5 days but after two weeks, I went to the doctors as I was concerned that something was amiss. At this point, Covid hadn't really been reported in the UK media.

I'm really intrigued to see if I took a reliable antigen test, would it reveal anything

 

[Darandio]

I think it's fairly clear now that it was here much earlier than first reported and re-testing along with more reports of people interacting with those in or travelling from that region of China will reveal the bigger picture. A choir in Yorkshire being a case in point where several members displayed similar symptoms after one member of the choir returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17th December. This is obviously still over a month before the first official reported case here.

 

[111-111-1]

I have a talk with someone who had a delegation at work from China late last year. Several of their team sufferd effects like COVID19 a few weeks after the visit.

coincidence or COVID? good antibody test will be vital.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I had something in mid December where for the best part of a week I was coughing a lot more than normal ( I have a long term... 3 or 4 years... low level persistent cough; this one felt different ), had a bit of a headache, a couple if days of a slight feverish feeling and 3 or 4 days when it was quite uncomfortable breathing at night - I ignored the latter because I thought I'd simply done a muscle, although normally when I do that it's only one side and this was both sides.

Now I've been wondering as well...

 

[Belperpete]

We know roughly how long it takes for people to need hospitalisation after catching the virus. We know when hospitalisations started rising. It is simple to backtrack.

While it is likely that a small number of cases were here earlier than we thought, I find it hard to believe that it was here in significant numbers. Unless you can explain why almost nobody who had it then needed hospitalisation.

 

[yorksrob]

We know roughly how long it takes for people to need hospitalisation after catching the virus. We know when hospitalisations started rising. It is simple to backtrack.

While it is likely that a small number of cases were here earlier than we thought, I find it hard to believe that it was here in significant numbers. Unless you can explain why almost nobody who had it then needed hospitalisation.

One might expect the first cases to be amongst movers and shakers in business and who undertake frequent international travel. By definition one would expect these to be younger and less at risk than the general population.

 

[Vespa]

I think it was here in November as my parents had similar symtoms and I got a touch of it, my dad had pneumonia for 4 weeks and was in hospital, it was no ordinary cold/flu it's the worst they've ever had.

I can only assume it was an early version of Covid19.

 

[LAX54]

We know roughly how long it takes for people to need hospitalisation after catching the virus. We know when hospitalisations started rising. It is simple to backtrack.

While it is likely that a small number of cases were here earlier than we thought, I find it hard to believe that it was here in significant numbers. Unless you can explain why almost nobody who had it then needed hospitalisation.

But maybe there were in Hospital, and maybe even passed away, but the cause going down to any underlying conditions they already had ? If CO-19 was 'unkown' then no reason for them to think otherwise, and of course many since who have died of Covid, may well have done so anyway

 

[Mogster]

Some of the European news sources seem to be reporting this also now.

Coronavirus may have been spreading since Wuhan Military Games last October | Taiwan News | May. 12, 2020 21:35

Suspected cases among international athletes months before Chinas first report to WHO | May. 12, 2020 21:35

www.taiwannews.com.tw

Reports of unusual numbers of ILI (influenza like illness) at an international sports event in October.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The world is beginning to reexamine when COVID-19 first broke out after a French athlete broke the news that she suspects she contracted it while participating in an athletic event in Wuhan, China in Oct. 2019 — two months earlier than China first acknowledged confirmed cases to the WHO, CNA reported on Monday (May 11).

According to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA), French pentathlon world champion Elodie Clouvel said that when she and her boyfriend Valentin Belaud took part in the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan in last October, many French athletes, including herself, fell ill. At the time they all assumed it to be the flu, but she said that some of them were quite sick.


She went on to say that she had recently visited a military doctor who told her she may have had coronavirus, as many on the French team had been ill at the same time, according to CNA.

The RFA report pointed out that former Italian fencing Olympian Matteo Tagliariol also said that when he participated in the Military World Games, he and five roommates all got sick with symptoms often seen in COVID-19 patients and experienced a long recovery time afterward. He said his fever and difficulty breathing continued even a week after returning home.

Antibiotics did not work, and it took three weeks for him to recover. His son and partner also fell ill; then, a couple of months later, the coronavirus outbreak made the news.

Several Swedish athletes were also reportedly unwell, including swimmer Raphael Stacchiotti. These suspected cases support the view of some Swedish epidemiologists that the virus may have been spreading in Sweden as early as November last year.

Nearly 10,000 athletes from 100 countries participated in the Wuhan sporting event. The international medical journal “Infection, Genetics and Evolution” on May 5 published a British study on its website indicating that COVID-19 may have already been spreading rampantly between Oct. 6 and Dec. 11, according to CNA.

 

[Crossover]

A family member was unwell back in late Jan/early Feb with something that seems to have some of the now reported hallmarks of COVID-19 - this was after we had spent 4 days at the NEC setting up/exhibiting a show which welcomes international visitors. They did visit the doctors (twice I think) as it wasn't shifting and the doctor could only suggest it was a virus and to wait it out.

We know someone else was unwell similarly around the same time as my family member, who had also been at the same show at the NEC.

As others have said, without a reliable anti-body test, we won't know (if it was COVID-19, the likelihood is I would have been exposed to it too, if just from the family member)

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

We know roughly how long it takes for people to need hospitalisation after catching the virus. We know when hospitalisations started rising. It is simple to backtrack.

While it is likely that a small number of cases were here earlier than we thought, I find it hard to believe that it was here in significant numbers. Unless you can explain why almost nobody who had it then needed hospitalisation.

@yorksrob has a valid point. However, the French case WAS a hospitalisation. It was just put down to pneumonia and only when retesting of samples was undertaken recently that it was established that it was Covid. Therefore, perfectly plausible that it was circulating at a lower level with a limited impact on death rates with just a few extras shuffling off with suspected pneumonia or the underlying conditions as @LAX54 suggested.

 

[_toommm_]

It was early Jan it became known about to me. By no means do I get my news off Facebook, but I saw a video of the doctor from China on the site who was trying to warn the world about a disease similar to SARS, and warning of a possible outbreak.

Admittedly, I did dismiss it as a conspiracy or hoax (as a lot of these types of videos on Facebook turn out to be) but at the time I remember it either being sparsely covered and downplayed in the mainstream media in which I take.