But this is the part you are trying to prove with anecdotal evidence. You have zero actual evidence that it was the same virus and your sample size is also very small.
The 34-year old ESPN reporter that died
- Thread starter psuguy43
- Start date
It impossible to prove, but it possible the virus found its way into the country before it was recognized. Without every single citizen being tested, they cannot prove the statistics that are being published either.
An antibody test is supposedly in the works to check if a person has been exposed. I'll be the first in line.
To make a LONG story short, I went to the ER on January 21 with a high fever and loss of breath. They did a flu test and chest xray and said I had pneumonia but no flu. They sent me home with antibiotics and an inhaler.
The next day, after I passed out at home, I returned to the ER and they did another chest xray and told me the other labs they did the day earlier came back positive for Influenza A1 and I was admitted. After battling bilateral pneumonia for 7 days in quarantine, they released me with oxygen at home and home health nurses. I recently had a follow up chest exray, and the pneumonia isn't fully resolved. I'm 45 and in good shape. The nurses and physicians assistants said it makes no sense. Give me the antibody test...
Last edited:
I thought I was until the chest exray came back unresolved pneumonia last week. My doc prescribed a CT scan and an appointment with a pulmonologist. I've been back to work for weeks and check my oxygen level a few times a day. I'll know more after my appointment.
The high fever turned into bilateral pneumonia basically overnight. I had all of the symptoms to a T including loss of taste. I want to know for sure what I had.
Last edited:
The idea that the first confirmed positive test patient was the first person in the US to have the virus is crazy
I agree and that is not what I am arguing. My issue is with those that base firm conclusions based on very limited data. It's great to develop theories, but use better/more data and continually question whether your theory is really valid as you accumulate data.
Agreed. "Patient Zero" in China may have first contracted the virus as early as Nov 17th (getting accurate info from the Chinese gov... good luck).
There were DAILY flights from China to the US until January. With how contagious this virus is, and with symptoms not showing until 14 days after catching it... the "crackpot theory" may be imagining that it HADN'T made its way to the US until now.
Why does this matter, you may ask? It matters because, if true, the US may be further along the road to recovery and "herd immunity" than ever imagined. It would be big news for our economy if we are that much closer. Without knowing, the government is making predictions that may or may not be accurate
https://www.legitgov.org/New-Oxford...e-may-have-already-built-coronavirus-immunity
Not aimed at the US, but nonetheless, is this still a "crackpot/conspiracy theory"?
Not aimed at the US, but nonetheless, is this still a "crackpot/conspiracy theory"?
It is crazy to think that because you had some of the symptoms of COVID 19, that also mirror symptoms of many other things, that you must have had it. Especially if those around you didn’t get sick or you didn’t see any other type of spread in your area or with people you come in contact with, unless you’re a hermit. One of the things that makes this virus so lethal is how easily it spreads (as we are seeing).
Here's a tip ... when trying to paint yourself as something other than a conspiracy nut, don't source things that refer to themselves as "legitgov" and then have a tagline of "your source for deep-state truth," while also promoting Qanon conspiracy craziness.
Woops, I had no clue about that site. I saw the article elsewhere and when I google searched the title, I got a bunch of results so I copied the first one
If it spreads so easily, why did it take it 6+ weeks to get to the US?
I have not. I'm going to discuss it with my doctor next week after my xray. I'm not sure that I would test positive anyway since it was 2 months ago. That's why I'm anxious about the finger prick test that's supposed to become available soon to check if I had it that's determined by antibodies.
More here:
https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/news/biomerica-finger-prick-covid-19/
I'm willing to bet if you had asked folks in the winter of 2018/2019, there were a lot of people who had "unexplained/unconfirmed" flu-like illnesses, as well. If some report came out saying Covid-19 has been around since November 2018, and has just mutated this year, you'd have all sorts of people talking about how that explains how they felt over week X, Y or Z in late 2018 or early 2019.
But, again, for this to make any sense, you'd have to make it jibe with current spread and mortality rates.
There's a lot of noise here, because we don't know how many people actively had it when we started finding out it was here, and we couldn't/wouldn't test for it ... but we basically know we have nearly 90K confirmed cases in basically less than a month. If it's been WIDELY floating around for 3 extra months, or more than that, the number of people who would have had it in those 3 months is MUCH higher than 90K. MUCH. We already have over 1K deaths in that month or so ... so we would have likely had tens of thousands of "unexplained" deaths before March. We would have seen clusters of "unexplained" extreme illnesses and deaths (like we see in nursing homes, etc.) among our most susceptible demographics. The thought that these would have gone unreported and uninvestigated just doesn't make any sense.
It probably didn’t take 6+ weeks. It would be a reasonable assumption that the first person that was confirmed to have it wasn’t necessarily the first person that got it. And even then, it could have taken time for the virus to show enough symptoms for that person to get tested.
Besides, what is the expected time for a virus to spread from China to the US like that? Is ~6 weeks an especially long time for it to spread across the world?
I would guess so. US says 14,000 people fly from China to the US every day. And the virus was in humans in China in early to mid November at the latest
You may want to tack on flights to/from China that has a layover in the US and vice-versa. It's quite a lot of people.
It may sound like a Longshot when you are looking at death rates, etc. I agree with that. However, those dates would be assuming that it was as rampant 3 months ago. Realistically, could the prevalence just have ramped up severely, maybe a sort of tipping point, when cases started to appear and the exponential growth started?
While 14k is a big number, that’s 14,000 out of 1.4 billion. 1 out of every 100k people. Again, I’m not sure how quickly you’d expect it to spread across the world as it’s starting out in a pocket of China.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/did-...oms-antibody-tests_l_5e7cb319c5b6cb9dc19b74b4
WELLNESS
WELLNESS
- Is It Possible That You Had The Coronavirus Earlier This Year?
Many people are mulling over their last cold or flu and wondering if the symptoms were actually COVID-19.
By
Lindsay Holmes
03/26/2020 12:29pm EDT | Updated March 26, 2020
coronavirus, you might be thinking back on the last time you were sick. More specifically, you may be reflecting on that cold or respiratory illness you experienced back at the beginning of the year. Is there a chance that was actually COVID-19?
The main symptoms of COVID-19 include a cough, shortness of breath and a fever. Additionally, you might have digestive problems ― like nausea or diarrhea ― a headache and a sore throat. At the onset of the illness, you may experience a loss of smell or taste.
These symptoms can be mistaken for a bad cold or the flu, especially if you have a “mild” case of COVID-19. It’s also very possible to have the virus and not even notice, as some cases can be asymptomatic or negligible.
There’s evidence the coronavirus started spreading in America earlier than people were really tracking it. Some experts suspect that the first U.S. cases began in January. Lee Riley, chair of the division of infectious disease and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health, told Medium that it’s safe to assume the virus has probably been spreading in your community for about two weeks before there’s a confirmed death.
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO TAKING CARE OF YOUR MIND AND BODY
Subscribe to HuffPost’s wellness email
Thanks!
You have been successfully signed up.
Combine all of these facts, and the theory that some people may have already been infected with the virus and recovered isn’t an outrageous one. That may be slightly comforting, especially since some experts believe you may have some level of immunity once you get COVID-19.
Unfortunately, there’s no effective way yet to know if you’ve had the virus in the past and recovered.
“At this point, we don’t have a test to tell that,” William Hillmann, an associate inpatient physician director at Massachusetts General Hospital, told The Guardian.
“We are developing antibody tests to check for a prior infection, but those aren’t ready for clinical use yet,” Hillmann added. “The only definitive way to know that you’ve had it is to get tested while you have it and to have that test be positive.”
Since you can’t determine if you unknowingly had and recovered from COVID-19, you should continue to act like you are susceptible or could be a carrier who may pass it to someone else. That means you must practice strict social distancing, limiting your exposure to others as much as you possibly can.
“This is phenomenally important for a disease like COVID-19, in which there is no natural immunity in the population and for which no vaccine exists,” Kirsten Hokeness, chair of the department of science and technology at Rhode Island’s Bryant University and an expert in immunology, virology, microbiology, and human health and disease, previously told HuffPost.
“This means that the only way for the virus to leave the population, in a sense, is to either infect everyone or [for us to] limit the ability of the virus to spread from person to person,” Hokeness said.
And if you’ve had the symptoms of COVID-19 recently, it’s especially important to isolate yourself. It’s believed that you’re contagious long after you stopped feeling sick.
The more we all behave like we’re carriers of the virus ― regardless of whether we’re currently experiencing symptoms, feel nothing or think we had it in the past ― the more impact we can have on slowing the spread.
Latest posts
-
-
-
FB Recruiting Penn State commit visting Ohio State this weekend- Latest: Dylan Callaghan-Croley
-