Do you think you might have had COVID-19 before we knew it was in the country?

[milestogo]

Two people who died in California in February apparently had it and were infected through community spread, not travel. If this is true, than there might be many more people who had it and died or recovered without knowing what it was.

32 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	No, its impossible
	0 (0%)
	No, I haven't been sick with a flu like illness in the last 6 months
	10 (31%)
	Yes, I had a flu like illness that was worse than the flu
	16 (50%)
	I had the flu this year
	0 (0%)
	I'm really not sure because I was never tested.
	3 (9%)
	Who knows?
	1 (3%)
	OTHER
	2 (6%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[FirstLight]

1. My daughter and her friends had a bad bout of flu in january...

they are all about 18

she's still having some chest pains ... so yea...

[milestogo]

2. I had a flu-like illness that lasted almost 3 weeks Dec-Jan.

It was worse than the usual flu. I did return to work after 3 days. There was something going around the office, but I don't know what it was, to tell you the truth. Nobody became very ill.

[intrepidity]

23. Same here

2nd week of Jan thru end of Jan. Northern CA.

[milestogo]

24. Hmm

I'm in WI, last out of state travel was in October.

[intrepidity]

25. I had just had a visit

from my son, from WA state....

Have not been ill since. Not a single cold or anything.

[Skittles]

3. I do know two people who think they had it in January

yes

[Mrs. Overall]

4. I voted "other." I had an odd illness that lingered most of January, but

it wasn't as bad as the flu.

I was very oddly fatigued, had muscle aches, a dry cough, and some uncharacteristic wheeziness, which I usually never have. The strangest symptom was that I lost my taste/smell for a couple of weeks, which has now ended up being a sign of coronavirus. The illness lingered and just when I would think I was getting better, I would relapse. It took at least four weeks for me to feel normal.

Not sure if it was the virus, but I have a feeling it might have been.

[milestogo]

5. If you did have it, you probably have some immunity.

[GoneRonin]

10. Same and pink eye

I had something very similar after being in California but i also had pink eye for days in the middle of the body aches. The pink eye was so abnormal at the time, but now sounds like it might have been an indicator.

[Mrs. Overall]

15. I had pink eye as well! I forgot to add that to my description. It was very light, but I definitely

felt like I had an eye infection.

My son visited from California for the holidays and I think I may have caught the virus from him.

[Iwasthere]

11. All definite symptoms. Why did you vote other

[Mrs. Overall]

14. Because the main "yes" answer indicated that the illness was worse than the flu--

and my illness was not as bad as the flu.

I have been much sicker with the flu than with what I had in January.

I was still functional and never felt like I had to be in bed.

[Progressive Jones]

22. Your description pretty much matches mine.

Middle two weeks of January.

I had the exact muscle aches that I've gotten with the flu for my entire life (I just turned 61).

I don't know if I had a fever. I didn't get any chills, so I never checked. Chills always come with a fever, for me.

I had some chest congestion, which I wrote off to recently giving up tobacco. I had quit smoking mid-December,
and was coughing stuff up after that. I figured it was my lungs "clearing out", so to speak. That's over with now.

For two of the days when I was down, the aches were bad, and I really had no energy. I also had a headache for these two days.
My normal energy level is pretty high, and the only time I normally get headaches is from not eating properly (2-3 times a year).

I didn't notice if my senses of taste and smell were off. That happens to me with even a common cold, so I wouldn't have seen that as a problem.

[EllieBC]

28. I voted other as well for most of the same reasons

Back in February we all had a fever, muscle ache, exhaustion, cough (though I did have congestion too in my sinuses). We all had our flu shot. They only tested me and my oldest for influenza and both were negative. We all had it anywhere from 1 week to 3 weeks. It hit us all differently and at different severity levels. But no was not as severe as the influenza I had a good 15 years ago.

[northlake9]

6. Yes

Early March
Became ill with flu like symptoms
tight chest shortness of breath, dry cough slight fever 99-100 overall achy, appetite low Slept most of the time

8 days of acute illness, still not back to feeling well

If given these symptoms today I would have considered it possible CV-19.

[broiles]

7. In early March my husband spent 4 days in the hospital with all the symptoms.

He was on oxygen and developed a-fib. Our daughter and I had milder symptoms. It took us 3 weeks to recover. He is just now feeling over it. No tests were available then.

[ecstatic]

8. No, but I think a far less contagious version was circulating around the country

long before February.

Think about it. At least 2 people died from it in early February, but apparently shit didn't hit the fan.

Why? How? What made it suddenly morph (or activate) into this horror freak show we're seeing now?

[milestogo]

12. Exactly... when the flu or the norovirus goes around its not considered an epidemic.

People dont seek medical care unless its pretty bad. And the coronavirus is pretty bad.

[Goodheart]

9. I had a flu-like illness back in February, despite a flu shot.

Can't say it was worse than the flu, though. Headaches, weariness, and respiratory problems. Not much fever, if any. Sounds like Covid 19 to me.

[woodsprite]

13. My daughter and I both had something in early-mid Dec., constant sinus drainage, fever (top was 101)

and sheer utter exhaustion I had never felt before. Cough that I handled with Nyquil. I remember thinking if the drastic drainage didn't stop, I would have to go to the ER because I felt like I was going to drown. For my daughter and I, it lasted up through New Years and were still fighting it a bit when we went back to work a week later - so 4 wks or more. It stuck in my mind due to the massive amount of drainage and the exhaustion. When someone asks how I'm doing, no matter what, I usually say "fine". I don't think I've ever really answer that question truthfully when I've felt less than fine, except for the Sunday after the fever. Someone asked, and I surprised myself by saying "Just exhausted. More than I've ever felt before."

Whatever it was we had seemed to have been very contagious. The lady that stands next to me in our bell choir had it the week after Thanksgiving, lots of coughing, fever, sinus. She came to bell practice when the fever went down. Within 7-10 days 4 more of us had it - me (her stand partner), 2 women on the other side of her, and the director who stands right in front of her.

At the time I was thinking that maybe it was regular flu and would have been worse if I hadn't have gotten my flu shot and pneumonia shot at the end of October.

[milestogo]

17. In mid December I went to the pharmacy to get a flu shot.

They were out of the vaccine. A week later I got sick. The cough and loss of voice were the worst part. I don't know how many bottles of nyquil I went through, but I set a record.

At the time I thought it happened because I missed getting the vaccine, but maybe it wouldn't have mattered.

[qazplm135]

16. I have no idea

in part because there are so many different symptoms for this thing.

I had...something over my birthday in late January. I was fully congested, and for several nights sleeping only happened for a couple of hours a night because I was so congested, more than I think I have ever been. But I didn't really have serious fatigue, no loss of smell or appetite, and if I had a fever it was a very mild one.

I didn't really have a runny nose. I can't remember if my nose was stuffed or not but I don't think it was.


At any rate, I'm positive it wasn't the flu. None of the signs of the flu. So it was either just a really bad cold or a cold combined with some sort of allergic reaction maybe? Or it was the CV.

I think that's the thing. it's just too hard to know without testing and trying to think back and match up symptoms.

[Nay]

18. I had spent 3 weeks in Florida and got back home on March 1. I had a very, very strange

sort of cold -- very sore throat, bad headache, and flu-like fatigue for 2 or 3 days. I had a dry cough too, but that lasted a week. But little to no congestion. I never took my temp so I have no idea what it was. My hubby got a milder version for a few days.

I remember thinking that it was the oddest illness I can remember having; I just felt very strange and sick, but it didn't match any illness in memory. Did I have the mild version of coronavirus? I have no idea. I'd love to find out.

[Jersey Devil]

19. Early January my wife and I had terrible, dry cough

No fever or other symptoms except for shortness of breath when walking which has since gone away. The cough was so bad we were going to make dr appts but it eased up after about 10 days

[Blue_true]

20. I had a headache in February and was developing a sore throat.

I almost never have headaches, so that got my attention. I do get a sore throat maybe once every couple of years, so that was not truly abnormal.

[marybourg]

33. I had those symptoms too. They came and

went for many weeks. Unusual for me.

[Blue_true]

34. For me the headache was the key. I never have headaches, even stress ones.

To notice my head aching was shocking, I actually thought about calling my Doctor about catscans. I am allergic to a lot of things, food, water at a low level, something in the air when I stay outside too long (truly a weird one, but I get a congested upper throat for hours after), hot drinks, so it isn't abnormal for me to have slightly runny eyes for an hour or so, or have nasal mucus after I get exposed to an allergen that triggers a response, so some symptoms of covid19 are fairly normal for me on a low level, it would be hard for me to say that I had it.

[BusyBeingBest]

21. Second week of January

right after a trip to Arizona, my husband became ill with a fever, chills, severe cough, night sweats for about four days. Weeks later, still had the night sweats and a lingering cough. One morning, walking in to work from the parking lot, he had an episode of shortness of breath so bad he had to sit down once he got into the building. He chalked it up to his ACE inhibitor doing something funky to his lungs. An otherwise healthy guy, 49, normal weight, only has high blood pressure, and he'd had the flu shot in October. We still don't know what that was. But we're suspicious.

[Flaleftist]

26. So far 1/3 say yes, but somehow I seriously doubt 1/3 of the population had covid in February

With all that is going on, I'd assume the majority of the respodents who said 'worse than the flu' knew the inference would be that they had covid.

I see this mentioned by a lot of right-wingers who want everything opened back up to normal. They already had covid, their kids or parents and friends had covid already. It's no big deal. Anyone who is playing up their past flu for attention is contributing to this bullshit.

Maybe someone with knowledge in statistics could chime in, could hospital admissions, death rates and any other data we know be an indication of how long this has been around and how many people might have been infected?

[jberryhill]

30. We've had this thread on DU several times now

Yeah, there was some stuff going around earlier this year. No, significant numbers of persons were not dying, and there was no abnormal spike in mortality consistent with this recurring bullshit notion that everyone’s seasonal cold was covid-19.

[milestogo]

36. There are now confirmed cases of people who died from coronavirus before it started in Washington.

Did they die of a "recurring bullshit notion"?

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. 1st known case was Jan 19th; 1st known death is now Feb 6th

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/23/us/california-woman-first-coronavirus-death/index.html

On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever. On checking into the clinic, the patient put on a mask in the waiting room. After waiting approximately 20 minutes, he was taken into an examination room and underwent evaluation by a provider. He disclosed that he had returned to Washington State on January 15 after traveling to visit family in Wuhan, China. The patient stated that he had seen a health alert from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China and, because of his symptoms and recent travel, decided to see a health care provider.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7092802/

So, no, there are still no confirmed cases of people who died from coronavirus in the USA before it started in Washington. We need to get our facts straight.

[BlueTsunami2018]

27. I do. Had many of the symptoms in February.

Wasn’t full blown of course but I rarely get sick. I’m very fortunate to have an iron constitution. I was half sick for three weeks with a relentless dry cough that just wouldn’t go away. I had gone to a killer old school house party with over 100 people in attendance. A couple days later more than twenty people were sick, some severe enough to go to the hospital with what they thought was flu or pneumonia. I believe it was this virus but obviously I can’t say for sure.

[jberryhill]

29. This is about the fifth go-round for this nonsense.

I flew from Austin to Philadelphia after attending a conference the last week in January.

I was sick for a week after, and then my wife went through it as well.

During my annual physical, about mid February, my doctor said there was something going around. The thing is, there was no significant mortality associated with whatever it was.

[phylny]

31. Not me, but my father.

He is 92. On January 28, he fell ill. He lived alone and by the time I called and didn’t get him on the phone the next day and called his neighbor, he was on the floor, too weak to get up, and was gravely ill.

He had no fever, but pulse ox was low, had pneumonia, kidney failure, heart failure, and needed bi-pap, oxygen, nebulizer treatments, had red eyes, and had lost his sense of smell and taste.

He was hospitalized for a week and in rehab for a month. His pulse ox was low without oxygen and breathing treatments for almost the whole month. He is now living with my brother and is doing remarkably well. We are hoping we can find out if he had it because he tested negative for the seasonal flu.

[JDC]

32. I was in Las Vegas for a conference at the end of Jan

Many, many people from my company got sick afterwards. Our meetings corresponded with a gun, ammo and tactical show up strip from our center and i know many, many people got sick there as well. ( I have a couple of friends in that industry ).

Likely just a bad flu, but it was the worst flu I can recall. Others also felt that way. My daughter, then wife got sick several weeks later in succession. It was the sickest I've seen my wife. Both of them still have lingering coughs.

[Maru Kitteh]

35. I voted "other." I think Mr. Maru had a mild case, so I could have been asymptomatic.

Mr. Maru:
- Running nose for 2 1/2 weeks solid
- Body aches
- Fatigue
- Fever of 100.4 (only lasted about 3 hours)
- Loss of appetite r/t reduced ability to taste/smell for about 3 days
- Said his skin hurt

[cbdo2007]

37. Yes in Feb. I was tested for flu and it was negative but was worst sickness I've had in decades

Gave it to wife and she had the lingering respiratory issues with hers that we hear with COVID and she coudln't get out of bed for days as well.

Preteen daughter got it as well and was tested but was negative for flu also.

Other two daughters under 8 DID NOT get it even though we had been coughing on them and they had been with us throughout.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. 1st known case was Jan 19th

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7092802/

[forthemiddle]

40. on the news in Indiana this morning

They said the first death was confirmed as being two weeks before originally recorded.
They are assuming the first case could have been up to 6 weeks earlier, putting it end of January beginning of February.

[ProfessorGAC]

41. I Suspect It, Yes

The week before Christmas.
Subbed at a small school south of me for a sick JrHi teacher.
He missed 3 days. I got sick 5 days after my first day there.
In 9 school days, me, 3 full time teachers, the secretary, the lady who runs the food service and 12 kids got sick within 2 weeks of Christmas. I think I'm missing one, because it was 19 people out of a total of 130, students & staff.
All had bronchitis, with the secretary having pneumonia. I never ran a fever, but now I'm reading a decent % of infections don't involve fever. (I forget the % in that article)

[Hekate]

42. Sis (NY state) & daughter (Calif) think so. I believe my sis more than my daughter for various....

...reasons, most of them having to do with a belief in science vs. magical thinking.

I think it was early January my sis got really sick, couldn't breathe, had to go to ER more than once. She's asthmatic, but never like this before. They ended up keeping her 5 days -- used one of those long swabs to check for flu ("It felt like they were scraping my brain&quot and finally decided it was asthma related because they had nothing else. Now she wonders.

In mid-February my daughter's 3 boys got sick with something flu-like. The youngest two bounced back, but the oldest (15) took a couple of weeks to get better. Can't remember if she did as well, but I was on my way to Surgery, so... She's pretty sure this was a light case of the CV and that all her beliefs about robust health have borne fruit. But she is also an anti-vaxxer and thinks Gov. Newsom is an asshole.

Me, I'm staying at home as much as possible at my age and stage.

[LAS14]

43. Why have "Not really sure because I was never tested?" If the illness...

... happened before we knew it was in the country, of course you weren't tested. Or did you mean tested for the flu???

[11 Bravo]

44. I was sick as a dog not long after flying from LAX to Dulles in mid-January.

Coincidentally, sitting directly across the aisle from me was an elderly Asian woman who engaged in a trans-continental coughing fit.
I feel fine now, but believe it's entirely possible that I was exposed to Covid 19 on that flight.