Any think they might have had this early in the year?

NIMAN

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Varadkar has said its possible the virus was in Ireland in January

Personally I am 99% sure it was here over Christmas. I saw the turmoil it caused for a neighbour.

If it was here in Dec and it is a highly contagious virus worth ruining a country's economy over, how come there wasn't massive numbers of very ill people clogging up hospitals? Why were there not a huge rise in deaths of over 70s, the immuno compromised, asthmatics, copd sufferers etc?

riffmongous

ceadaoin. wrote: »

No you wouldn't have been overwhelmed instantly. Despite what the media would have you believe, it isn't a death sentence for 99%+ of people who catch it. A good proportion of people, up to 50% or even more don't have symptoms. Out of the symptomatic proportion, 80% have mild symptoms which its possible to confuse with other illnesses. The people who are admitted to hospital or who die are a small proportion of the total infected and overwhelmingly have other conditions.

It would take a lot of total infections before people started to become admitted to hospital or die in large numbers that would even be noticeable and not just put down as a "bad flu season"

With what is coming out now about how this isn't as fatal or as contagious as first thought(German study for example) , I think it's entirely possible that it has been everywhere since december/January and in China since October (which I think they have already confirmed?)

And the scenes in northern Italy a few weeks ago? How do you explain them?

gilmour

Was sick from late November until mid December. I've had the flu before and many chest infections, but i have never been so bizarrely ill (if that makes any sense), no sore throat or usual cold like symptoms etc just a bizarre timeline of getting sick, improving then getting even sicker.
Started with a headache so strong i thought it was going to explode, then floored with a fever and a general feeling of being able to do anything other than lie in bed for a week.
When i say bizarre, i can't remember anything other than not being able to concentrate on anything for that whole week. Hallucinations and nightmare dreams came and went. Then i felt like i was getting better, able to eat a little and actually able to sit up and watch tv until the next day when i became increasingly unable to breathe properly, i actually threw up and went to my doctor who sent me for an xray because he didnt like what he heard on my lung. When he got the results back he was basically baffled and just gave me my 3rd antibiotic and an inhaler. I recovered around 21 days after my first symptom.

I didnt return back to work until January, where i noticed i could no longer climb the stairs without pausing to catch my breath. I put it down to anxiety at the time but looking back on all of this its very very strange. Was it covid? It couldnt be given what we have been told about the virus, but it sure as **** was not anything i've ever ever had in my life. I would be very interested in an antibody test should one become available thats for sure.

Danno

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/french-army-returned-wuhan-military-21988912

The Irish Army were present there too and I heard of at least one barracks were very sick upon returning home in early November.

lalababa

There are still a few boardsies with an extreme hard on for the line that c-19 couldn't have been in Ireland before such and such a date. Cop yerselfs on will ya, ye are becoming a pain in the arse broken record.
French zero (for now!) patient with severe symptoms hospitalized on the 24th December. When did he pick it up...around the 15th-17th ?
Even Leo Var says it's probable we had it in December.
So I'd suggest ye have a good auld tug and a cold shower before ye go back to your graphs that tell ye nothing. Har har and up the zarr!

Mike3287

riffmongous wrote: »

And the scenes in northern Italy a few weeks ago? How do you explain them?

Exponential growth

It spread silenty since Nov/Dec till it exploded violently, took a few months to build up

1 became 5, 5 became 25, 125 became 725, 725 became 3,625, quickly became 625,000

Italy had in reality a million or so cases when 1000 a day were dieing, it had 100,000 confirmed cases

We probably had up to 75,000 cases when we had 77 die at peak and 15,000 confirmed cases

France opening Pandora's box even more

Confirmed cases on Dec 2nd, 15 cases as early as November

https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/coronavirus-un-premier-cas-de-covid-19-remontant-au-2-decembre-confirme-en-alsace_3952985.html#xtref=https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/gfeeuw/coronavirus_a_first_case_of_covid19_dating_back/&xtref=https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/coronavirus-un-premier-cas-de-covid-19-remontant-au-2-decembre-confirme-en-alsace_3952985.html

owlbethere

gilmour wrote: »

Was sick from late November until the mid December. I've had the flu before and many chest infections, but i have never been so bizarrely ill (if that makes any sense), no sore throat or usual cold like symptoms etc just a bizarre timeline of getting sick, improving then getting even sicker.
Started with a headache so strong i thought it was going to explode, then floored with a fever and a general feeling of being able to do anything other than lie in bed for a week.
When i say bizarre, i can't remember anything other than not being able to concentrate on anything for that whole week. Hallucinations and nightmare dreams came and went. Then i felt like i was getting better, able to eat a little and actually able to sit up and watch tv until the next day when i became increasingly unable to breathe properly, i actually threw up and went to my doctor who sent me for an xray because he didnt like what he heard on my lung. When he got the results back he was basically baffled and just gave me my 3rd antibiotic and an inhaler. I recovered around 21 days after my first symptom.

I didnt return back to work until January, where i noticed i could no longer climb the stairs without pausing to catch my breath. I put it down to anxiety at the time but looking back on all of this its very very strange. Was it covid? It couldnt be given what we have been told about the virus, but it sure as **** was not anything i've ever ever had in my life. I would be very interested in an antibody test should one become available thats for sure.

I posted within the last 2 pages of the main thread, of two articles and some long recoveries. Your experience describes what I've read. Up and down illness. Sick for some days, beginning to feel better, sick again and yo-yoing like this.

Its incredible.

boege

Latest research is that this pandemic started as far back as October.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/coronavirus-spread-around-world-2019-study

Someone I spoke to in RCSI indicated to me this week that Ireland may have had a Covid death in December, and we may yet see emergence of a positive case as far back as November.

Not sure what to believe anymore!

riffmongous

Mike3287 wrote: »

Exponential growth

It spread silenty since Nov/Dec till it exploded violently, took a few months to build up

1 became 5, 5 became 25, 125 became 725, 725 became 3,625, quickly became 625,000

Italy had in reality a million or so cases when 1000 a day were dieing, it had 100,000 confirmed cases

We probably had up to 75,000 cases when we had 77 die at peak and 15,000 confirmed cases

France opening Pandora's box even more

Confirmed cases on Dec 2nd, 15 cases as early as November

https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/coronavirus-un-premier-cas-de-covid-19-remontant-au-2-decembre-confirme-en-alsace_3952985.html#xtref=https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/gfeeuw/coronavirus_a_first_case_of_covid19_dating_back/&xtref=https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/coronavirus-un-premier-cas-de-covid-19-remontant-au-2-decembre-confirme-en-alsace_3952985.html

But the majority of people reported being sick back in Dec/January, if so many people were sick at that point then the growth rate would have seen Ireland and all the other countries overwhelmed within a couple of weeks not months

quokula

I was sick over Christmas, don’t remember quite how badly, it was nothing out of the ordinary but I just remember a conversation with a coworker on the first day back where we were both having a moan about being ill over the break.

What was unusual was how long the cough persisted. I was generally well, but all the way into late March I was still having regular coughing fits. I was actually considering going to the GP about it but decided not to risk it with covid being around - I knew there was no way that was what I had given it started at Christmas.

With the reports from France etc I’d start to entertain the possibility that it could have been covid, though most likely it was something else. Never had a cough persist for so long in my life though.

oholly121

Myself and the missus where ill just after Christmas early Jan

First she started to feel unwell like an extremely bad flu very bad headaches and a persistent cough which she couldn't shake off for nearly 2 weeks

A week later I got the same dose found it difficult to walk and was more or less confine to bed for 10 days again very persistent cough and tighning of my chest

My colleague in work also came very ill just before Christmas and shes one of the fittest people I know - Same symptoms as above

I reckon its been here since November last year and effects people differently as we know but no panic with testing and hospitals etc as we didn't know anything about it at this stage

mickdw

Is it possible that there has been a major mis calculation here. Everything known until yesterday suggested a virus that arrived in europe in march and got to deadly levels in a week or 2.
That would throw up a reproductive rate far higher than for a virus that arrived here in early december and took 4 months to reach the same deadly levels.

Mike3287

riffmongous wrote: »

But the majority of people reported being sick back in Dec/January, if so many people were sick at that point then the growth rate would have seen Ireland and all the other countries overwhelmed within a couple of weeks not months

Of course

Majority for sure didn't have covid

Flu was alot more common, but a good few would have had covid

We had 700 confirmed dead in Mid April with a 0.5% death rate thats 140,000 cases

Say we missed 300 dead from Dec to April thought to be flu etc thats 200,000 cases

What kind of RO is needed to get to 200,000 cases by Mid April if it started in late Feb?

Would December start not give a more realistic RO figure?

Xertz

Mass antibody testing will give us a better picture of what’s going on.

All I know is whatever I had just around and after Christmas was extremely severe. I’ve had the flu a few times over the years and this was on whole other level.

I’ve never had a scenario where I breathed out my lungs sounded like Rice Krispies in a bowl popping away. That went on for about a week or so.

Other than that headache, high temperature, bad cough and I lost around 6kg (around a Stone) but the end of it.

I genuinely wasn’t 100% right again until well into February.

NSAman

this was raised in a previous thread that was locked.

January 16th I think, spent a week in bed (well on the couch) high fever, horrific cough, sweating like never before and absolutely terrible breathing. zero energy and took weeks to get my lungs working properly again.

I had flown from Ireland to the US. A week before.

A week later, my mother back in Ireland was in the ICU with breathing problems having had this for 4 days after i left. Heart issues ensued also. She was on oxygen for a week, and eventually left after three weeks.

My brother had the same thing with high fever for over a week while she was in hospital.

I was on the edge of flying home due to the severity of her illness and my brothers.

now there is no way to confirm that this was COVID-19 but ... the coincidences are a little too similar.

Many said it was just a flu, but having been tested that came back negative.

Roll on the anti-body tests... i am more than just curious at this stage.

Others here in he office, also got the same symptoms to a lesser degree.

Stheno

I'm hoping the antibody testing comes in soon and after prioritising frontline workers, becomes Ava I'll label to recovered confirmed cases and then the public.

My office imposed a global travel ban end of January, but if I go back to the three months from November to January, between people in work travelling, and visitors to the office, we had people from China, India, most EU countries, Russia, and the States all in and out of our office.

About a quarter of my colleagues went skiing in Jan/Feb and in January returned to work as normal

In Feb/March we had a higher rate of illness than normal in the office which most put down to the normal winter bugs

It would be interesting to antibody test everyone there

ceadaoin.

riffmongous wrote: »

And the scenes in northern Italy a few weeks ago? How do you explain them?

How does what I said not explain it? Its been everywhere since late last year. Silently spreading. They know for a fact that its a minority who go on to have severe illness. At some point enough people in Italy were infected to see large numbers admitted to hospital. Same with new York. The true number of infections is multiples of those who were confirmed because most people have mild or no symptoms.

ceadaoin.

NSAman wrote: »

this was raised in a previous thread that was locked.

January 16th I think, spent a week in bed (well on the couch) high fever, horrific cough, sweating like never before and absolutely terrible breathing. zero energy and took weeks to get my lungs working properly again.

I had flown from Ireland to the US. A week before.

A week later, my mother back in Ireland was in the ICU with breathing problems having had this for 4 days after i left. Heart issues ensued also. She was on oxygen for a week, and eventually left after three weeks.

My brother had the same thing with high fever for over a week while she was in hospital.

I was on the edge of flying home due to the severity of her illness and my brothers.

now there is no way to confirm that this was COVID-19 but ... the coincidences are a little too similar.

Many said it was just a flu, but having been tested that came back negative.

Roll on the anti-body tests... i am more than just curious at this stage.

Others here in he office, also got the same symptoms to a lesser degree.

You are in the US aren't you? You can buy an antibody test with quest for $110 or something. I'm thinking of doing it. I think it's available in most states

Here's is the Iink..its $119 which you might be able to claim on insurance

https://questdirect.questdiagnostics.com/products/covid-19-immune-response/b580e541-78a5-48a6-b17b-7bad949dcb57

NSAman

ceadaoin. wrote: »

You are in the US aren't you? You can buy an antibody test with quest for $110 or something. I'm thinking of doing it. I think it's available in most states

I am ceadaoin, I have already asked my own doctor (a friend) about these tests.

They have been rushed through, he was of the opinion to wait until more reliable tests are available.

I am so damned curious at this stage. Even now my lungs are not as good as they were. I am still coughing intermittently.

Stheno

NSAman wrote: »

I am ceadaoin, I have already asked my own doctor (a friend) about these tests.

They have been rushed through, he was of the opinion to wait until more reliable tests are available.

I am so damned curious at this stage. Even now my lungs are not as good as they were. I am still coughing intermittently.

Theres an antibody tested that Roche have brought out which is EU approved, 100% accurate and 98% specific

Maybe ask your doctor if that specific test is available?

I believe it's also FDA approved

BoatMad

mickdw wrote: »

Is it possible that there has been a major mis calculation here. Everything known until yesterday suggested a virus that arrived in europe in march and got to deadly levels in a week or 2.
That would throw up a reproductive rate far higher than for a virus that arrived here in early december and took 4 months to reach the same deadly levels.

indeed, it would suggest we severely over reacted, as had we detected it and implemented relatively minor mitigating measures, it might have been sufficient without wreaking the economy in the process as we now have done

Simplythat

I was in Madrid mid February, four days later had bad cough, sweating and headache. This lasted two weeks with fatigue . I didn’t go to doctor, apart from 55 euro, I dosed myself.

ceadaoin.

NSAman wrote: »

I am ceadaoin, I have already asked my own doctor (a friend) about these tests.

They have been rushed through, he was of the opinion to wait until more reliable tests are available.

I am so damned curious at this stage. Even now my lungs are not as good as they were. I am still coughing intermittently.

The one quest are using is the Abbot one which allegedly is over 99% reliable.

marilynrr

ednwireland wrote: »

end of jan, had 24 hr sore throat, 2 days of a bit of fever 2+ weeks of a hacking cough and general feeling crap.

the weird thing was i never get colds/flu like that i fractured an eye socket which messed my sinuses many years ago so inevitably get massive sinus pain from any cold - that was the weirdest thing.

was it covid who the f**k knows but strangest thing ive had in a while never drunk as much dry cough benelyn.

It's not that weird though. I first got the real flu in early 2019. I never get sick. It happens!! I was wiped out for weeks!

I know a good few people who are convinced they had it as far back as November.

But the way they describe it it sounds just like the flu, the problem I think is that people are so used to saying they had the 'flu' when they've only ever had colds before so they don't know what the real flu is like.

If they got the flu and all they've ever had before is the common cold then they will have seen a HUGE difference in the severity of how sick they were and possibly think it was covid-19.


There's also a lot of exaggerating going on with how sick people were, people saying their whole household was wiped out for weeks but they weren't, the kids were in school, the adults were at work, they were out doing Christmas stuff! They wouldn't have been doing that stuff if they were as sick as they said they were!

Also it's May now, people are thinking back to a 6 month period where generally nearly everyone gets sick at some point, some people get sick a few times in that period, it's normal!!!!

Anyway to throw out my own "maybe I had it earlier this year" story :D my daughter came out with a rash on her hands just before the schools closed, and then that weekend I had a really bad fever I also had covid toes as they're called, but then my heating hadn't worked for a couple of weeks at that point

I'm not doubting that some people did have it before the first official case, but I am certain that the vast majority of people that think they had it definitely didn't, and the number of negative test results should show that that is true!

NSAman

ceadaoin. wrote: »

The one quest are using is the Abbot one which allegedly is over 99% reliable.

Shall enquire about that! Thanks ceadaoin!

riffmongous

ceadaoin. wrote: »

How does what I said not explain it? Its been everywhere since late last year. Silently spreading. They know for a fact that its a minority who go on to have severe illness. At some point enough people in Italy were infected to see large numbers admitted to hospital. Same with new York. The true number of infections is multiples of those who were confirmed because most people have mild or no symptoms.

But why didn't everywhere else see the same situation if it was everywhere? Exponential growth and the infectiousness of the disease would have seen everywhere get hit if it was really here back in late last year

Danno

marilynrr wrote: »

...I'm not doubting that some people did have it before the first official case, but I am certain that the vast majority of people that think they had it definitely didn't, and the number of negative test results should show that that is true!

The negative test results only say you don't *currently* have Covid19. As far as I know there is no antibody testing in Ireland to show if you have *recovered* from it.

Ms2011

https://www.linkedin.com/content-guest/article/autopsies-prove-covid-19-disseminated-intravascular-coagulation-cot%C3%A9

Saw the above article and thought it was interesting because as I stated in my post above all 3 of my family members were struck down with that bug at Christmas, I however never caught it even though I looked after all 3.
I have an autoimmune disease and take anti inflammatories and am currently on a corticosteroid.
Proves nothing of course but just found it interesting and somewhat of a coincidence.

Melanchthon

I am not sure about this theory, looking at the general mortality graphs if it was spreading in December and January across a wide range of regions there should have been a flu like winter spike, but when we look at the charts there wasn't a jump in mortality as in say 2017? Covid19 is likely at a minimum as dangerous as Flu so it doesn't make sense.

Also sewage testing in Holland and so on seems to show it spreading later not being present in all samples initially.
As another poster also pointed out if this is the case why is there the geographic clusters.

I would be hesitant about placing much weight in Varadkars statements and other politicians about this as if the virus spread unknowingly earlier it removes the politically damaging failure to contain, on this note if it was spreading this much earlier countries that brought in strict border controls etc shouldn't be doing as well as they are as it would have already been wide spread, instead countries like Israel seem to have done a good job.

It could still be true but all the above is why I am skeptical of this theory.