Was Covid-19 Here Already?

[BSNbound21]

Have any of you seen cases of suspected CV-19 before this current outbreak? I personally suspect that it went through my family earlier this year, and whenever I share this with others they too have had or known someone who had a "mysterious viral illness" between November and now. A family member of mine had every symptom of CV in early February so we assumed this person had the flu (they tested negative).

[eerrmm]

1 hour ago, 2BS Nurse said:

This is why we urgently need the antibody test.

Yep. Otherwise people may be walking around w/ a false sense of security thinking they already had it. Or are still in fear when they may not need to be.

[BSNbound21, BSN, RN]

2 hours ago, eerrmm said:

Yep. Otherwise people may be walking around w/ a false sense of security thinking they already had it. Or are still in fear when they may not need to be.

Exactly. On the one hand I suspect that my family has all had it. On the other hand, I understand that I could be terribly, terribly wrong, so I must behave as if we have not been exposed yet. It's a strange limbo to be in .

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

3 hours ago, BSNbound21 said:

Exactly. On the one hand I suspect that my family has all had it. On the other hand, I understand that I could be terribly, terribly wrong, so I must behave as if we have not been exposed yet. It's a strange limbo to be in .

I'm in the same boat

[HandsOffMySteth]

It's very dangerous to make assumptions in respect to microbes. Better to play it safe.

[MRRN]

My friend also an RN works with teenagers at a residential facility. She said the last 6 months the kids have been getting pneumonia and the staff was bewildered.

I believe one state looked back at several cases of recent pneumonia deaths and there was a positive.

[Schweet]

Has anyone heard if CV can cause a long lasting temp but not as high ? We had all the symptoms but our temps remained the two weeks at 100.6, all other symptoms were typical of CV. They finally tested me at the end of the 2nd week, of course was negative for CV and Flu.

[mccartjm33]

I never comment on forums but I cant resist this. I work with a chinese md. He visits china several times per year, often weeks at a time. Last fall he visited china for about 3 or 4 weeks. A few weeks after arriving back, he developed a cough and bronchitis. I am in and out of his office all day long staffing patients, 5 days per week. So we have tons of contact. A few weeks after he got sick I also developed symptoms. This was the beginning of November. It's started with low grade fever, muscle aches, and mental fog. Then about 6 or 7 days later I developed a terrible dry cough. The worst I have ever had. I almost blacked out a few times from coughing so hard. Then several days after the cough started I was very sob. If I tried to exercise or walk up stairs I felt like I was having an asthma attack. But the thing is, I dont have asthma, or any medical conditions that I'm aware of. Anyways, the sob got so bad one day I was scared, I felt like I needed to go to the ed. I managed to quell it by resting and sitting upright in a recliner. For a few nights I had to sleep with pillows behind my back to stay upright so I could breathe. There was no real congestion, it was a dry sort of tightness. Went to CVS and bought primatine mist inhaler LOL. Then, and I remember this as clear as day, a few days later upon deep inspiration I felt congestion in my right lower lobe. This congestion lasted about two days, as the cough persisted. Then the congestion in my lung went away. The cough persisted for about 4 or 5 more weeks. It was bad. My whole family caught it from me. I read yesterday that people who see lots of cases say that anecdotally the pneumonia almost always sets in in the right lower lobe first. I would be absolutely willing to bet that this illness was festering in china for months before they will admit to. They are possibly lying about the origin and extent to save face. I have also read research papers where based on phylogenetic analysis of different samples almost all have determined that this virus originated sometime in late Summer or early fall of 2019, but they dont know where. Also a top virologist in italy is now claiming it was there in November also. It started as something uncommon last year, now after all the Winter holidays it has exploded and a massive number of people have been exposed. I cant wait to take an antibody test. I bet I will have Igg antibodies.

[SansNom]

If this is true, wouldn't it be a good thing? Would it not mean that we are further along on the "curve" than we thought? it would certainly change projections if we knew it was here for months longer than we thought.

[MsJenn_The_RN]

This is interesting. The intensivists have talked to us about this issue several times, and they think it’s been here since January or February. We had this influx of patients with all the symptoms, testing negative for everything else.

[rn1965, ADN]

I wondered myself about this. I know this is SUPER early, but, in September, I started running a fever, out of the blue. The only other symptoms were extreme exhaustion and body aches. It would go down a bit with Tylenol and Motrin, but I ran over 102 for 10 days. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I ached all over and could not eat, no appetite.

I live in Central Texas and I sometimes get what we call Cedar Fever, but it was way too early for that also.

I know the first case showed up in China in early December, but I cannot help but wonder if something else was floating around. I never had any respiratory symptoms.

[mccartjm33]

The chinese government has admitted that their first known case of someone seeking treatment was November 17th 2019. It had to have come from somewhere before that. Only way to figure it out is with antibody testing.

[TravelNurseLady]

Several staff at my hospital had a dry cough & fatigue lasting 1 month around the holidays (December 2019). They all wore masks whole shift, it didn't spread around.