Coincidence or....?

@lizbethann I had a terrible hacking cough, high temperature and completely lost my sense of smell and taste before Christmas. I was wiped out for weeks and needed an inhaler for the first time in my life. After I first fell ill, My DGS had a rash, high temperature and cough, DH had similar symptoms to me and later needed an emergency bypass due to blood clots. My DS had similar but milder symptoms. Prior to becoming ill I had taken trains to Birmingham and London for work. We live near a major university city which had a large number of tourists and I had been there shopping.

I personally think Covid started here back in possibly November & really feel it was here in December. A neighbour was really ill December after his son & grandson came from China to stay. A relative was really ill with ‘flu’ that led to a chest infection at Christmas. Very suspicious that it was here earlier in pockets of people that naturally isolated from others due to how ill they were. February seems a definite to me. ,

This post has really made me think. I always felt it must have reached the UK long before the first announcements. However looking back I realise I had the most unusual sore throat for about a week in February. I could not swallow at all, even warm drinks or ice lollies which have helped in the past. I also had a cough but rarely gave in to it because it hurt my throat so much. Then I had conjunctivitis. I have never had a cold, sore throat, infection or anything like that for years so I kept saying, 'This feels different'.
One of my sons who also is never ill had a persistent cough for weeks, as did his partner. They put it down to their one year old baby bringing back bugs from nursery. Then same baby developed what was diagnosed (by telephone) with Hand, Foot and Mouth at the beginning of March. Another son and partner also had a cough for weeks. The mother of my other grandchildren was ill with a chest infection and cough for weeks too. She was the only one who finally went to the GP and the rest of us soldiered on as I am sure many others did so there will be no real record of how many people were ill with these symptoms.

Sorry for the typos above

My daughter and I were very, very poorly mid October to the end of November last year with what I would describe as Covid symptoms. We both ended up eventually at the out of hours GP in the A&E department of our local hospital. Mine had turned to pleurisy. Daughter had 2 lots of antibiotics which didn't do much at all. We felt dreadful. They now reckon it could have been hanging around as far back as September last year. I am airline cabin crew so it woyld have been easy for me to puck it up. We are convinced we had it then, before we knew anything about it.

BBC world corona virus update with regular info from WHO has announced in last couple of days that sewage/waste water samples taken in DECEMBER 2019 from MILAN , TURIN and BOLOGNA have tested positive for Covid 19, yet officially the outbreak started in FEBRUARY. Testing sewage water samples had been proven to be reliable in monitoring the spread of Covid through cities lately. So all the above posts citing Dec illnesses etc are prob correct in my opinion. It’s been in Europe a lot longer than previously thought .

It's 6 months tomorrow since I first got a dry cough, MamaCaz.

It's when all is quiet, DH has gone upstairs and I am sitting looking at GN (hmm) and I can hear this squeaking in my URT.
I had never been prone to chest infections. When I had the virus at Christmas it seemed very unusual for me to have such problems and I was more concerned that DH would catch it. He did but wasn't as ill as I was.

Callistemon

Seefah do you think you had COVID19 twice or do you think the first illness was another virus with a cough?
Interesting, because I had the worst cough I've ever had after I was ill in December and can still hear my URT squeaking sometimes.

That's interesting, about the squeaking URT.
I have mentioned on other threads that I had strange symptons back in February, including fluid in my lungs (which could so easily have led to pneumonia), and am still aware sometimes, normally when in bed, of squeaking noises!

GrandmaKT......nothing is made easy in the UK !! We get told things and then 2 days later we get told the exact opposite, conflicting information all the time, government can't decide amongst themselves what info to put out, I think the majority of people in the UK just want a government that tells us the truth, where we are up to in the fight against Covid-19, and advises us confidently and correctly. But we get bumbling Boris and his party of clowns messing our lives up!! Interestingly I was speaking to an older gentleman in his 80's when out shopping last week (socially distanced of course) he told me that he had been very ill before Xmas with the symptoms we are seeing for Covid-19, went to his GP, was told he had a virus but the GP "didn't know which one" ....... I really think this has been around for a lot longer than we are being told.

I returned from Australia via Singapore airport in October. Later I went to bed with a chest infection which took time to get over. As a result I told friends I would not join them at a Choir performance as I did not want to give it to them.

Seefah do you think you had COVID19 twice or do you think the first illness was another virus with a cough?
Interesting, because I had the worst cough I've ever had after I was ill in December and can still hear my URT squeaking sometimes.

DD3 returned from a work trip to NY at the end of February feeling very unwell with a high temp, cough and very sore throat which she put down originally to air travel. She has since learned that 2 of the people she was working with have had confirmed Covid and is now convinced that is what she had. Her DH & children have had no symptoms. Maybe she’ll never know...

I read a university research paper saying it’s possible 4 million people in UK might have had it and reading all the stories here it seems quite likely !! I’m very grateful for everyone sharing stories I learn so much !! I was ill in January after passing through Venice airport. I was coughing so much I was going through a whole carrier bag of tissues every day for 10 days ! I had antibiotics and a nasty lung scan and the doctor put me on high dose of Vit D, vit C , immune support powder. Ive stayed on that ever since. Then in early March got a mild dose of Covid ( thank God for vit D !). Recently I had a/b test which showed negative. But Prof Sikora said a lot of people were fighting Covid with T cell system so wouldn’t show antibodies. Only 10% do. So I’ll be shielding until 0 cases.

In January my son and a workmate had to travel to Germany for three days to sell a new product to German engineering,
On return after a couple of days ,my son had a raging temperature ,but he was shivery at the same time , accompanied by a hacking cough and sore throat, He said at the time he had never felt so ill , his workmate reported feeling the same,
Could that have been Covid. I suspect it was, I think it was around before we officially knew,

Do you mean the Chinese Government bondenana?
They were the ones hiding the truth and whistle blowers were silenced.

There were lots of people with the same symptoms as described here
My sister and her whole family had it over Christmas,so did my daughter who had 2 lots of antibiotics,then steroids and sent for an X ray, she had a shadow on her lung which was when she was given the second lot of ABs
It does make you wonder,and there were 2 threads on Mumsnet about people who had this too
I do believe it was connected to Covid 19,as we were not informed of this soon enough,
Probably the Government hoping it would blow over

Thank you all for your comments and remarks. They have all made very interesting reading and I hope you, your families and friends all fully recover in time. What is noticeable is how many people have been exceptionally unwell. We all expect to get coughs, colds and flu especially in winter but your stories are all of illnesses far in excess of what we should be expecting. Even amongst people who are rarely ill. My DDs are generally fit and well. I would have put their illnesses down as just being an unfortunate coincidence had DD2 not had the antibody test. The possibility of false negative results is worrying. Perhaps they should have a "best of three" approach. Though I think a false negative result is far less dangerous than a false positive one, which may result in people still at risk having a false sense of safety. I doubt we will ever really find out what was happening in Britain before March. I only hope we have done enough to keep us safe from a second peak. Keep well and stay safe. Xx

My DS and his partner were ill over the Christmas holiday with hacking coughs, high temperatures. DS had it more severely than his partner and had breathing difficulty. My DS partner is a scientist with a well known pharmaceutical company, and they had scientists visiting from various parts of the world at that time. I think as others have said, we can’t rule out that the virus was around late last year.

I had all the symptoms mid November, and was diagnosed with a chest infection. My COPD went from mild to moderate.

I said ages ago that I thought I and my neighbour had it last February. She works at the University where many Chinese Students had returned after Chinese New Year and many come from the Wuhan area. However, I believe that this upper respiratory tract virus that gets so quickly into the lungs has been around for a longer time than we have been told by Scientists who have been relating it to the Wuhan outbreak.
I am impressed with how most people put so much faith in the tests and accept the results even after what their experience has told them. Until this COVID experience I would happily have my flu injection and trust they knew which version of flu was on its way and how to fight it off. Now I have been studying viruses and vaccines. In fact, by coincidence, I was following a University series of lectures on viruses last September! I almost wish I hadn't learnt what I have especially about the vaccines. I know now that by no means do they all work and that many are likley to make you ill. The test for antibodies is rather an unreliable test too apparently.
The whole experience in the UK has been of floundering from one government idea to the next always in the wake of disasters and behind the time when action was needed. The coronavirus tracing app is a laughable cock-up (is that ok to say here?) and I for one have given up expecting anything from it.
Coronavirus is the virus that causes the common cold - we all know - the new one, SARS-CoV-2, surely is going to throw up antibodies similar to the common cold? Yet we keep getting colds. So we know the antibodies don't live long or the common cold is particularly adaptable.

I honestly think this corona virus will die out if we behave sensibly. If you are vulnerable, have a health condition that makes you weak in the face of a respiratory virus, then keep away from people until it goes. Have fresh air as much as you can, preferably in the sunshine. The anxiety that all the reactions and lack of work plus people being so frightened, on top of the barbarous treatment of Care Home Residents and Staff, has made people ill. We need to look after each other, keep our spirits up and hold on to our common sense. Enjoy the sunshine and as much as you can enjoy each day.
With lots of love to everyone, Elle ???

I had a flu type virus in the middle of January and I described it at the time as not the worst flu I’d ever had but certainly the worst cold! My DD had a cough all through my illness and when I said I was afraid she would catch what I had she just shrugged it off and said I’ve had a cough for the last few weeks and she thought she had had the same virus but not so badly. Just as I was starting to recover she got a really bad sore throat that lasted for about a week then one morning it disappeared and she felt really sick. For the next few days she suffered diarrhoea and vomiting and a high temperature. I think she had the same virus as me but it came out in her differently. My DGD had swollen glands during this time that just wouldn’t disappear they lasted for weeks. She had a flu type cold eventually at the beginning of March and after that her glands went down. At the time I was ill there was a thread on here where lots of gransnetters were discussing the awful flu type virus they had just had and how they were having difficulty shaking it off. I’d been ill for about week by then but when I read of others experiences I thought I’ve probably got the same bug and I’m just going to have to put up with it for a couple more weeks and accept I’m not going to feel well for a while. It was a horrible virus and it totally wiped me out. I discounted COVID-19 at the time because it seemed it was only in China at that time. My daughter works at a university and my granddaughter goes to the nursery there, they have lots of Chinese students and I catch the bus a lot which also has a lot of the foreign students on. So it’s not impossible I suppose for it to have been the new virus. Would love to have an antibody test to find out.

This is a very interesting thread. I have always, rather smugly, said that I don't catch colds, don't get viruses, but by early January both DH and I were on our second bout of a nasty cough and cold, but not flu sysmptoms. I had a really tiring and persistent cough and a couple of times I just took to bed with exhaustion. My SiL and Brother came back from Spain in January, SiL was so poorly with flu like symptoms that the GP had to be called and she was confined to bed for 5 days, again, she is rarely ill. I did hear a report on Radio 4 that French health officials were going over test results of people who had died of 'pneumonia' as far back as December and it has now been acknowledged that many had covid19. I think this has been around for far longer than we have known, and I also believe that the Chinese authorities were not honest and timely in their reporting of the Wuhan outbreak.

were there not some military games competition back in summer last year, that took place in china, poss even in wuhan.
i seem to remember hearing that, and that many of the competitors had to withdraw due to illness, or became v ill shortly after. and of course carried it back all across the world. and then armies etc tend to be drawn from all over a country and go to other countries. extending the spread.
i listen to a lot of radio, think i heard this on the world service.
also i believe that chinese are the largest foreign student group in Uk. we have many near here, who incidentally seem more interested in shopping in the west end than in academia. mostly daughters of v rich factory owners and party big-wigs in china. they come for the craic.
wonder where they are now. gone back presumably.
anyway i too think this novel virus how/wherever it started has been afflicting the world much longer than was thought.

The Chinese are presumably much cheaper to employ and then adding “made in Italy” particularly to leather goods, will mean they can ask a premium price. I dread to think what conditions the people are living in.

The Canary Islands have coach trips to huge warehouses full of Chinese made tat. It was part of a day trip but a total waste of time.

A huge learning curve for us all.