Did anyone recently get sick before the pandemic became official?

[Skylar.]

I had a very mild cold around the beginning of March. Sore throat and a stuffy nose. Come to think of it, I may have just had a bad allergy attack. It was gone in about two days.

 

[Healer Flame]

M

15 Oct 2019 , Italian newspaper predicted a nasty flu that was circuling bad and will affect 6 million people which turn out to be Covic19

L'influenza colpirà 6 milioni di persone

La nuova stagione influenzale «vedrà protagonisti virus più insidiosi e in termini di stime potrà colpire circa 6 milioni di persone». Questa la previ...

www.iltempo.it

So Yeah, Covic 19 was circulating freely before it became a pendemic but the newspaper assumed it was a nasty flu.

☝️

Found similar articles in Spain and Chinese newspapers so yeah we can say now the disease was around for at least 3-4 months.

 

[AVBeatMan]

As the title says ....

I had a weird sickness mid Feb.

Had a fever, felt very cold and sweaty, no stuffy nose or sinus issues, felt extremely fatigue, had a very slight cough but no shortness of breath. I never felt that way before. Never had a fever without some other prominent symptoms, and never felt as cold from a fever before. I was basically bed ridden for three days.

Maybe it's possible I had Corona, maybe not?

I had the exact same, beginning of February. Lasted a week. Was so cold I had to get in bed fully clothed and next minute so hot I had to stand outside. I did have a cough and my ribs ached due to coughing so much. I’m in the UK.

 

[0388631]

Nothing surprising there - current estimates of the fatality rate in the most vulnerable groups are "only" ~15% so the majority of 80+ year olds are expected to recover... and the age effect is likely correlation rather than (direct) causation - it is underlying health problems (which are far more common in older people) that are the killer.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#what-do-we-know-about-the-risk-of-dying-from-covid-19 seems like a data-rich and level-headed source.

General point:

Now, you wouldn't wish a 15% chance of death on anybody but, folks, this ain't ebola or the Andromeda strain. The issue - and the justification for the precautions - is the potential for completely overwhelming the hospitals so that people who need treatment (for anything) don't get it, in which case the death rate for everything goes up.

Even "plain old flu" pushes many health services to their limit at peak season - so even if the "its no worse than regular flu" claim were true it would be no cause for complacency. The reality is we've been walking around with fingers crossed that we don't get a nastier-than-average strain of seasonal flu... I think it is true that, if the annual flu death toll were treated as headline news the way COVID has, we'd see a not dissimilar panic and call for action, which is something to think about going forward but doesn't make the current issues go away.

Yep, precisely. I was thinking about this weeks ago. The flu kills a lot more people, it is however less contagious to a degree. However, when was the last time the media made mention of deaths attributed to the regular flu strains that occur each winter?

I believe there has been 1 death within a 20 mile radius, but the individual was nearly 70 years old and the hospital without being specific stated the person suffered from more than 3 underlying conditions.

 

[0388631]

CDC suspects the first European infections came from a tour group in January 2020. As I said, I suspect China is painfully unaware, not fibbing, but unaware of how long this thing has been around. It simple isn't feasible for their variant of the CDC to start pulling up graves and testing for RNA fragments, or even ours here.

 

[MacAndMic]

My son was sick with the flu in late January. I took him to a Patient First place as it was a weekend and his doctor’s office was not open. He was diagnosed with the Flu. About a week later, I came down with “something” that did not match his flu symptoms. I had a headache, fever, a little cough and muscle aches that lasted for about 5 days. My wife never gets sick but did get a touch of it. My daughter was on antibiotics at that time due to Lymes disease (happy to say she is fully recovered) and did not get anything. Did we have it, who knows? but this gets me into my next paragraph.

If people believed they had it and could possibly help in the effort, is there a resource we can use to get tested and then help in some fashion? I see these lines of people wanting to get tested and then everyone helping gowned to the hilt. Well, if we can prove we have the antibodies in our system, we could be very helpful I think. Recently they’ve mentioned using plasma from people who have had it. Anyone know if that’s viable right now and where do I/we go to donate?

 

[tranceking26]

One random day about 2 weeks ago was spent in bed with a fever, I started to worry but then the next day I was OK again.

 

[AVBeatMan]

This is interesting..,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1242917442755706882

 

[satcomer]

Yeah, there was a bug/flu going around in early feb, me, my wife, my daughter, and father all had it and it was the strongest flu we’ve ever had. Knocked us all out of commission for about a week or so. My son was fine though, never showed any symptoms other than a slight sore throat.

We are in Florida.

What doesn’t go down in Florida? There seems to a pattern! 😉