US coronavirus: Study says Covid-19 may have arrived in December

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The deadly coronavirus may have circulated in the United States as early as December, about a month earlier than believed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to researchers with UCLA.

Their study, published last Thursday in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, found a statistically significant increase in clinic and hospital visits by patients who reported respiratory illnesses as early as the week of December 22.

The first known case of Covid-19 in the US was thought to be a patient in Washington who had visited Wuhan, China, according to the CDC. The case was reported in January.

Dr. Joann Elmore and colleagues looked through nearly 10 million medical records from the UCLA Health system, including three hospitals and 180 clinics.

Elmore said she started the search after receiving a number of emails from anxious patients in March through her clinic's patient portal at UCLA. Patients kept asking if the cough they had in January could have been Covid-19.

"With the outpatients, I found a 50% increase in the percentage of patients coming in complaining of a cough. It came out to over 1,000 extra patients above the average of what we would typically see," Elmore told CNN.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-coronavirus-study-says-covid-19-may-have-arrived-in-december/ar-BB1938E7?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=DELLDHP

[bdamomma]

1. I believe

it did start in 2019, thus it's name Covid-19.

[Iliyah]

2. Duh - COVID-19 . .

I think it was here earlier, maybe October 2019.

[agingdem]

8. it was ...

my grandson was in New York for a few days in November..two days after his return his temperature spiked, he started coughing, his throat hurt, and his breathing was a little labored...he went to a doc-in-a-box convinced he was having another bad asthma episode..he was tested for both flu and strep throat...both negative..he was prescribed a steroid and an antibiotic...after about a week he improved and he's been fine ever since...my granddaughter's roommate had more severe symptoms in January and she too was test for flu and strep...it took her another three weeks to completely recover..it's now obvious both had covid and my granddaughter was not only exposed to the virus but was living with someone in the throes of it...and yet, she never had symptoms...

[Takket]

3. this is purely anecodtal but.....

on Dec 19th, i went to see Star Wars in theaters. PACKED with people. Also went the next day. By the beginning of next week i work up with a cough. it hung on for about a week, never really got too bad. i did not have a fever and literally only blew my nose once at the end of the week. didn't feel anything like (or nearly as bad) as any cold i've ever had which is usually the stuffiness and sore throat and occasionally gets into my lungs.

my wife has a compromised immune system and it hammered her. she was sick two weeks though for her not so much with the coughing but it was more like a flu.

i just remember how strange it felt when i was sick and really starting wondering months later hearing about covid symptoms if i might have had it........

[phylny]

4. Oh, I think so. We think our father had it.

He lived on Long Island. On January 27, I called him at home and there was no answer. Same the morning of January 28. Long story short, he had been on the floor, deathly ill, for at least 18 hours.

He had every symptom of Covid-19: Loss of taste, loss of smell, weakness, severe respiratory issues, severe diarrhea, pneumonia, heart failure (worse that usual), kidney failure. Flu test was negative, CT was negative, didn't have a stroke, didn't have a heart attack, but his muscles were trashed. He remains weak. This was a man who, although he is now 93, drove to church that Sunday, brought his trash out Monday morning, cooked his meals, shopped by himself, and lived on his own.

He was in the hospital for one week. They had "never seen a chest x-ray like his." They were baffled. He couldn't walk by himself, couldn't pick himself up when he slumped over in bed, couldn't eat food or drink without choking.

He was in rehab for about a month. He had breathing treatments twice a day for a month. He was on oxygen. Twice his pulse-ox got so low that he was disoriented. Rehab was baffled. We had trouble convincing the therapists that the man they saw in front of them was nothing like the man he was on January 1st. He sold his house and lives part time with my brother and sister-in-law, part time with my husband and me.

His Covid antibody test came back negative in June, but who knows how long the antibodies last or how accurate the test is?

[LizBeth]

5. Swear the front desk got it Jan 6 and around. Everyone had a different experience. Cough was there,

some it came and went, some worse than others. I had three days of dead tired and coughing and had the least symptoms. Fellow employee that saw me a couple days later said I looked much better, I looked like death a couple days prior. Others had a much longer time frame.

We had people from Calif and Wa staying with us and a tech team that had visited family in China in mid December. Even joked with them how close they were to Wuhan.

It took out the whole front desk of the hotel.

[soothsayer]

6. Anecdotal here too but my sister got terribly sick and lost taste and smell Jan 5

I remember cuz it’s her birthday. We thought she had pneumonia. No energy at all, just wiped out with a couple of weeks of coughing.

[mshasta]

7. Remember those Princess Cruises

....

[bamagal62]

9. I'm almost certain that

My daughter brought it home from college during winter break. She would have been home around Dec 15. And, she’s rarely sick. She has a very strong immune system.

[ARPad95]

10. My son moved to NYC the beginning of January and 3 weeks later he became sick with fever

& chills, raspy throat and fatigue. He figured it was the flu.

[Klaralven]

11. More athletes claim they contracted COVID-19 at Military World Games in Wuhan

More athletes have revealed that they fell ill during the Military World Games in October when the Chinese city of Wuhan hosted the event months before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Taking place in October, the allegations came two months before the first identification of COVID-19 by China.

Close to 10,000 competitors competed at the Games from over 100 countries during the nine-day event.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock alleged that she got COVID-19 despite no cases being reported until December.

She said: "After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days.

"I have never felt so sick, either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19, I think it was COVID-19."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1094347/world-military-games-illness-covid-19

[Thekaspervote]

12. I boarded the SW Chief that originates in Chicago and road to Flagstaff, AZ. 31 hrs

We had a roomette but dining and restrooms are communal. The train runs daily from Chicago to LA and back with people from all over the world.

10 days later, I had the worst pink eye. Nothing helped. Also had GI symptoms and low grade fever. The fever continued for another 2 weeks. I’m good now, but it took quite a while for me to finally throw it off. I still wonder