Link: earlier COVID-19 in California? Nope. UPDATED

[sonia]

I had just linked cynthia1960's warning about the racist quoted in the article below, and then I saw this detailed debunking: No, You Did Not Get COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019 by Jane C. Hu. Sorry to spread misinformation!

New study investigates California's possible herd immunity to COVID-19 by Caitlin Conrad. (Warning, there's a video that might auto-play.)(See cynthia1960's comment for content note about article quotes of Victor Davis Hanson.)

The hypothesis that COVID-19 first started spreading in California in the fall of 2019 is one explanation for the state's lower than expected case numbers. [...]
Hanson said he thinks it is possible COVID-19 has been spreading among Californians since the fall when doctors reported an early flu season in the state. During that same time, California was welcoming as many as 8,000 Chinese nationals daily into our airports. Some of those visitors even arriving on direct flights from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

My 30-person choir in Portland, OR had 3 people with pneumonia and a *lot* of coughing this winter. When I started hearing about COVID-19, I wondered. If this year's "bad flu season" was a COVID-19 preview on the west coast, I wonder why it didn't build up to the catastrophe other places have seen and are seeing.

Can't wait for an antibody test to become generally available!

Comments

[cahn]

What I don't understand is, if we had a COVID-19 preview, why we weren't seeing a bunch of people with ARDS overwhelming the hospitals (which to me is the scariest thing about COVID-19). If this is the case, maybe there is another strain that's milder that inoculated us?

[sonia]

Exactly. That is the big question.

[batdina]

I believe that when I was in rehab, I had covid. I definitely had an unidentifiable thing that wasn't the flu, but also wasn't pneumonia or anything else they could identify. They gave me two separate antibiotics for it and doubled down on asthma treatments. I also stopped eating because everything tasted like sand. I recovered. But it took over ten days, and then I was slow to regain stamina.

Obv can't prove it, but if I had to place bets ...

[sonia]

Oof, I'm glad you got through it! Just what you need when you're already in rehab... :-/

[cynthia1960]

I was knocked on my ass for three weeks over the holidays. Cough from hell, fatigue, no appetite. It will definitely be good to get an antibody testwhen it is widely available.

[sonia]

Yeah, either there was something very similar going around, or... Glad you got through it too!

[cynthia1960]

I will note that your linked article includes a drive by comment from Victor Davis Hanson, who has Stanford's Hoover Institute imprimatur to be a racist pile of shit. Definitely disappointing reporting there.

[sonia]

Ugh, I didn't know about him. Thanks for the heads-up.

[firecat]

Yeah, eagerly awaiting the antibody test. Several of my people had a fever + bad cough last fall and winter.

[sonia]

Wow, that's a lot of folks with this experience out of my small readership!

[amethyst73]

Huh!

So... my husband went to NYC back in early November. He came back with a nasty cold/flu thing, which had a fever and then cold symptoms, and in his case a cough that lasted FOREVER. I caught the fever and cold, but not the cough.

Fast-forward to just after Christmas. I sang in the choir at the local church, and there was someone in choir who was sick but came anyway and infected me. I had a classic cold, followed by a cough that went on FOREVER and had larger amounts of fatigue than usual associated with it during the recovery phase. I think I had a day or two of mild fever early on. My husband didn't catch anything from me that round.

So... neither of them was classic Covid-19, but it'll be really interesting seeing what the antibody test shows!

[sonia]

One positive change I'm hoping for after all this is over is that we'll have permission, nay encouragement to STAY HOME when we're at all sick. I think overall productivity would go up, and more importantly, overall misery would go down.

[cofax7]

A good friend of mine had a life-threatening case of the flu over the holidays: 911 and all that. She says they tested her and it came back Influenza A, but it does make me wonder...

[sonia]

Yikes! My understanding is that COVID-19 tests negative for the flu, but hey, there's lots we don't know.