Disconcerting questions

[jducoeur]

This morning I had my "physical" with my GP. As you would expect, this was conducted entirely online, and was fairly perfunctory as a result. She didn't see any reason why I needed to be examined by anybody in person, and I didn't have any particular questions, so it was just basically a 15-minute chat.

Along the way, I happened to mention the horrible cold that Kate and I had this winter, and she asked, "Do you think it was covid?" I dismissed the idea, since the timing was all wrong.

And the timing is all wrong: whatever it was, I figure I probably caught it on the flight down to Florida on Dec. 20. The symptoms started in earnest on the 23rd, IIRC. So far, I'm not aware of any cases in the US that early.

And yet...

When I think back on it, I am, as the title says, disconcerted. The primary symptoms for me were ghastly coughing and exhaustion -- I was laid pretty much flat for about two weeks, and it took another six to shake it off once and for all, with a relapse or two along the way. (I distinctly remember being grateful that I finally seemed 100% healthy by a few days before Arisia -- and then came down with it again about a week later.) It was ferociously contagious during Christmas week, ripping through my family over the course of that vacation. (I tried to keep my distance from everybody, but when you have a dozen people spending much of the day in the house, that isn't exactly proper social distancing.) The symptoms varied enormously among my family -- some exhaustion, some fever, some cough, even some pneumonia -- enough so that we just sort of figured that there were several different ailments going around the house.

It still seems implausible: I have no reason at all to believe that COVID-19 was going around Boston as early as Dec 20th, so I still figure it was just an exceptionally horrible cold. But if you told me that somebody on that flight down had it, I would totally believe that I caught it there.

(The problem with humans is that we are really good at pattern-matching. And it's sometimes really hard to tell the difference between the false positives and the correct ones. My kingdom for a reliable antibody test...)

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Some think covid was spreading in Boston at least in January...

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/research-finds-coronavirus-circulated-in-boston-earlier-than-thought-report/2115073/

[lauradi7dw]

I have a pair of elderly friends who got antibody testing recently (through a relative in a lab, I think). They were surprised to find that they had no Covid19 antibodies, because they had what sounds like you had. "I guess it was just a terrible cold after all." Or maybe a bad antibody test? As you say, they don't seem reliable.

My mother was diagnosed with viral pneumonia in December. There were apparently an unusually large number of viral pneumonia cases in the US at that time. Coincidence? Probably, but one really wonders.

[cvirtue]

Until they have antibody tests that are reliable (argh) there's no way to know -- I'd like to know for me, as well, as I think I had it shortly after my husband had a more extreme version (than I did, but less than you did) in mid-March.

"It is now clear that the first cases of community spread in the United States ...were in January, when only travel-related cases were being caught and reported."
https://www.livescience.com/did-you-have-covid-19-in-january.html

[cvirtue]

Just saw this (late today)
"genetic evidence that supports suspicions the virus was infecting people in Europe, the US and elsewhere weeks or even months before the first official cases were reported in January and February."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/health/genetics-coronavirus-spread-study/index.html

[luscious_purple]

I had an extremely similar bug -- lots and lots of coughing, shortness of breath, fatigue -- immediately after Pennsic. It was a germ thing, because I passed it on to the guy I live with.

I have not been tested for antibodies to the novel coronavirus. Maybe it was another coronavirus? After all, "coronavirus" refers to a whole family of viruses (virii?), as opposed to rhinovirus or retrovirus. (That's about all I know -- my last biology class was during Gerald Ford's administration.)

[hudebnik]

I started coughing around Dec. 14, and spent a good deal of every night coughing until about Jan. 22. Then I had a blessed two weeks without coughing, then returned to coughing, moderate fever, and chest congestion (diagnosed as viral bronchitis) from about Feb. 5-27. shalmestere was diagnosed with a flu some time in February. And based on anecdotal evidence (friends, neighbors, co-workers, and my PCP) it had been a particularly bad flu season, against which this year's flu vaccine didn't help much. One does have to wonder in retrospect how much of this was COVID-19 all along.

[ilaine]

A couple of days after Arisia I came down with what I thought was the flu at the time, but now wonder about. On the other hand, while covid19 might have been spreading then, it couldn't have been that common yet. When you hear hoofbeats think horses, not zebras.