Was coronavirus in California by fall 2019? Scientists are testing people to find out

[laylalex 7,300]

Quote

Researchers believe COVID-19 first appeared in fall 2019 in California — accounting for the state’s lower confirmed cases.

As of April 6, California has 374 deaths due to coronavirus. Despite having half the population of California, New York has nearly 5,000 coronavirus deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

 

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by laylalex

[Randyandyuni 2,682]

3 minutes ago, laylalex said:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

3 people in my department (of 24) were hospitalized in mid January for severe pneumonia, I believe the same thing

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

12 minutes ago, laylalex said:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

sounds like a bad case of the love bug.  you two should each take two bad habits and see each other in the morning.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

14 minutes ago, laylalex said:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

 

  The virus was widely circulating in Wuhan in November according to the intelligence community, so ostensibly it would have been in California shortly after. The theory is still that it was not as easily transmissible (among humans) until a mutation occurred in December. 

[Orangesapples 1,954]

24 minutes ago, laylalex said:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

It might have been the flu as well, it takes two weeks to recover from it usually. 

 

I was super sick a few weeks ago and I have no idea if it was Covid or the flu. I'm leaning towards the flu because it started suddenly but who knows. 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

7 minutes ago, Orangesapples said:

It might have been the flu as well, it takes two weeks to recover from it usually. 

 

I was super sick a few weeks ago and I have no idea if it was Covid or the flu. I'm leaning towards the flu because it started suddenly but who knows. 

 

  It's also worth pointing out that you can get the flu several times in a season. You won't get a given strain twice, but you can get all of the circulating strains at least once. People are sometimes surprised when that happens, but it is fairly common. 

 

  We had something going around here in November too, and the person I know who had it worst had family who had just been to China. I doubt it was flu since we all had flu shots. I only had a mild sore throat, but many people had a dry cough and were complaining that it lasts for 2 weeks. Sounds a bit like Covid-19,  but of course, there are plenty of other respiratory viruses that can do that too, including the existing strains of endemic Coronavirus that were around before Covid-19. I sometimes look at the data when there is something going around that seems more nasty than usual, and it's most often some benign virus that the medical textbooks call mild. Sometimes they just seem to hit people a little harder.

[Orangesapples 1,954]

Just now, Steeleballz said:

 

  It's also worth pointing out that you can get the flu several times in a season. You won't get a given strain twice, but you can get all of the circulating strains at least once. People are sometimes surprised when that happens, but it is fairly common. 

 

  

Yep, been there, experienced that. 2017/2018 flu season was really nasty, I was still new to North America, and the flu shot didn't save me from getting the flu twice. It was actually a worse experience than the illness I had in March. 

[Dashinka 24,743]

51 minutes ago, laylalex said:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241855856.html

 

Now I'm wondering if when I was really sick just after Christmas whether I had coronavirus. I had a fever for over a week, body aches, exhaustion, a dry cough... Al was sick too and it lingered for both of us for just over two weeks. I'd love to take an antibody test if I could. 

I wonder how Al caught it.

 

Seriously though, I went through the same thing as I have mentioned previously.  I was in China in mid December (not in Wuhan, but in Shanghai), and two days after coming home via a China Eastern flight through Chicago, developed a dry cough, fever, etc., I did not have breathing issues, but it felt different.  Overall, it was rather mild, the fever was low grade and only lasted about a day.  The cough though lasted for at least a week.  It was a fortuitous time though as when I came home, I was on vacation through the holidays so I was not around many people, although my wife also had similar issues a few days after I developed them, her’s  were mild as well.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Dashinka

[Dashinka 24,743]

8 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  It's also worth pointing out that you can get the flu several times in a season. You won't get a given strain twice, but you can get all of the circulating strains at least once. People are sometimes surprised when that happens, but it is fairly common. 

 

  We had something going around here in November too, and the person I know who had it worst had family who had just been to China. I doubt it was flu since we all had flu shots. I only had a mild sore throat, but many people had a dry cough and were complaining that it lasts for 2 weeks. Sounds a bit like Covid-19,  but of course, there are plenty of other respiratory viruses that can do that too, including the existing strains of endemic Coronavirus that were around before Covid-19. I sometimes look at the data when there is something going around that seems more nasty than usual, and it's most often some benign virus that the medical textbooks call mild. Sometimes they just seem to hit people a little harder.

I heard stories from my family that something similar was going around in December as well.

[Dashinka 24,743]

32 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  The virus was widely circulating in Wuhan in November according to the intelligence community, so ostensibly it would have been in California shortly after. The theory is still that it was not as easily transmissible (among humans) until a mutation occurred in December. 

Or pretty much any other place where there were regular flights to China.  Detroit used to have two daily from Shanghai and Beijing, so at least 800-900 people coming through Detroit Metro airport everyday, just from China.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

I heard stories from my family that something similar was going around in December as well.

 

    Given the amount of air travel, there is no way it could be widely circulating in Wuhan for that long and not show up elsewhere. I do think they are going to eventually use the antibody test to determine if it's safe to be back to work or not, and I'm pretty sure we'll get it done fairly soon where I work. That may shed some light on it. I haven't heard of any employee having it where I work, which is also starting to seem a bit unusual. Either we have had it in the past, or we are all asymptomatic. They are asking us to report to occ health now with even mild symptoms like a sore throat, loss of smell etc.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

4 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Or pretty much any other place where there were regular flights to China.  Detroit used to have two daily from Shanghai and Beijing, so at least 800-900 people coming through Detroit Metro airport everyday, just from China.

 

   I remember that research analysis that had a list of cities where it was likely to be widely circulating in February. I think they were on to something. I remember Seattle being on the list. I think Chicago was the other one for the USA.

[Dashinka 24,743]

2 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   I remember that research analysis that had a list of cities where it was likely to be widely circulating in February. I think they were on to something. I remember Seattle being on the list. I think Chicago was the other one for the USA.

 

3 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

    Given the amount of air travel, there is no way it could be widely circulating in Wuhan for that long and not show up elsewhere. I do think they are going to eventually use the antibody test to determine if it's safe to be back to work or not, and I'm pretty sure we'll get it done fairly soon where I work. That may shed some light on it. I haven't heard of any employee having it where I work, which is also starting to seem a bit unusual. Either we have had it in the past, or we are all asymptomatic. They are asking us to report to occ health now with even mild symptoms like a sore throat, loss of smell etc.

That is interesting, I wonder if areas like CA and WA developed herd immunity to some extent helping explain their much lower numbers?  I don’t think social or physical distancing can completely explain everything there.  
 

On another note, I talked to my Dr. last week and we discussed this a little.  She mentioned that many workers in their office (group practice) were sick back in December which she said was unusual for them, so she suspected it was something new circulating.  I also look forward to the antibody testing.

[laylalex 7,300]

2 hours ago, Orangesapples said:

It might have been the flu as well, it takes two weeks to recover from it usually. 

 

I was super sick a few weeks ago and I have no idea if it was Covid or the flu. I'm leaning towards the flu because it started suddenly but who knows. 

Almost certainly not the flu in my non-expert opinion. It had a very different feel to it, if that makes any sense. It's kind of hard to put into words but there was a strangeness to it, feeling exhausted but not completely wrung out, and the length of time I had the fever was really remarkable. I called my doctor by the time we'd both had a fever for four days and he said you're both healthy young adults, just keep taking Tylenol and resting. That's really all we could do, and Alex went back to work the first Monday after new year's still feeling miserable. There were other people in his office who were suffering similarly. Two of my friends I saw on Christmas Eve got sick in similar ways. It was like a mini-explosion. At the same time some of my friends in the Pasadena/Burbank area were also complaining of feeling really, really sick in very similar ways. The only thing that was a little different is that quite a few people had serious nasal congestion as well as the dry cough, fever, exhaustion. I may have as well? It feels like forever ago. I had also asked my mom who's a doctor at the time and she said it might be flu, even though I'd had my flu shot, but it might also just be a really, really bad cold. 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

10 hours ago, Orangesapples said:

It might have been the flu as well, it takes two weeks to recover from it usually. 

 

I was super sick a few weeks ago and I have no idea if it was Covid or the flu. I'm leaning towards the flu because it started suddenly but who knows. 

So sign up for the antibody test and find out for sure.  They are looking for volunteers.  Great time to become part of the solution.