Could that nasty crud you had last fall have been COVID-19?

Pinedale ^ | 4/11/2020 | editorial

[volunbeer]

No.

We know how severe this illness can be in the elderly, obese, and diabetic. The pneumonia like symptoms that lead to patients being placed on respirators is unmistakable. I agree this is not a world-ending pandemic by any stretch, but what has happened in Italy, Spain, and NYC would have been hard to miss last year.

[tomkat]

That moose may have gotten hold of some bad cheez prior to biting her.

Safety should have mandated the quarantine of all a) sisters, b) parks, c) dairy related industries.

Moose bites are nothing to sneeze at !

[bert]

Actually, the actual curve is not really that steep. The original curve had a margin for error depicted both above and below the actual curve that is a heavy line.

It is the top most band that is the most argued about. It is formed by a variable margin of error that diminishes with time. That makes it look steep.

I can’t cite the actual margin of error but at the greatest value, it exceeds 100%. That represents acknowledged ignorance and inability to accurately predict.

The models that are so roundly rejected by various band wagons carrying happily waving unbelievers produced the curve based on extrapolation of available data from China, Italy and Seattle.

[Vermont Lt]

Covid a lower respiratory infection that would have shown up with bi-lateral pneumonia.

And since the first indications of the disease were in early December in China, it is unlikely it spread to the US until late December at the earliest—and mostly likely not until during the Lunar New Year period.

[Bob434]

[[By the second day I could not smell or taste anything. ]]

They say that happens with covid

[Beagle8U]

I had something just a few days before Christmas that had all the symptoms of the Kung Flu, right down the pneumonia.

I was sick for over a month and thought I was going to die. Even with Zpak it wouldn’t go away.

[buckalfa]

I have had this conversation with former medical colleagues in Upstate South Carolina. December thru February saw a higher than average load of bad flu cases and subsequent deaths. Of course without testing or even the contagion being on the radar, we will never for sure.

[Vermont Lt]

And remember, we are using a very limited amount of data.

The other thing is that the data is presented as affecting the entire country at one time. In reality, this will move from place to place over time.

For example, it will probably plateau in NYC around now—but not in Boston for two more weeks. And its going to spread from East to West. It WILL reinfect the West Coast as the East Coast version (the Italian/Iranian strain L) is much more viral that the S strain that originally went into Washington and Oregon.

But anyone using thirty data points, with all of the limiting factors, to predict ANYTHING doesn’t understand how predictive theory works.

The Models were always flawed. I have been ridiculing people putting up charts and tracking data since January. Did you realize for the first month the Deaths/Cases in china was the same percent? That shit doesn’t happen in nature.

Limits on tests, limits on tests being run, Limits of hospitalizations...all of these things impact the ability to make a projection.

The ONLY number of all of this stuff that is scary—which is the recent R-naught of 5.7. That is incredibly high. Like, small-pox high. Measles is around 12, and the annual flu is marginally higher than 1. 5.7 is something to be concerned about.

But models and curves? Its stupid math at best.

[DugwayDuke]

bert wrote: “Actually, the actual curve is not really that steep. The original curve had a margin for error depicted both above and below the actual curve that is a heavy line.”

Does the flatness/steepness of the curve possibly indicate that the virus might have been in the US in the very early fall is I suspect?

BTW, the 2018 ‘Spanish Flu’ began with a wave of infections that were almost indistinguishable from the common influenza. Very similar mortality rates. Then, things changed and the ‘Spanish Flu’ became highly lethal. Hopefully, that isn’t what is in store now.

The ‘Spanish Flu’ was commonly reported, at least in the early stages, to be ‘just the flu’, “nothing to worry about”.

[Fungi]

I was saw a squirrel catch and eat a live sparrow—no kidding!

[Hojczyk]

It went thu the country USA before the Dr in China figured out it was not the flu...

That is why other parts of China seem to have missed out...it could have been floating around for months??

Doctors just though it was the flu

[copaliscrossing]

I visited Hawaii during Halloween. A flu/cold hit the big island hard, spread fast and hard. I got it from my Sister while visiting her. I brought it home to Tacoma, my whole family got sick. I had it twice and I never get sick. Everyone in our social circle got it, and we continued to party on, holiday parties. Finally ran the course by early January. I’m convinced that it’s related.

I work in Tacoma and live outside of Tacoma and in early January I came down with a terrible cough and could not breath deeply and certainly could not laugh.

With that said, I hardly ever get sick and when I do it presents as gastro-intestinal and really cannot remember the last time I had a cough of any sort in a sick/ongoing way.

So this cough lasted a good three weeks and would wake me up at night and I didn't ever take my temperature but stayed home from work a couple days because I didn't feel well at all generally. Real fuzzy in the head which was weird for me.

So after three weeks this cough went away and I felt pretty normal then about 5 days later, I had a terrible tightness in my chest and a little bit of restricted breathing. After about 10 days of that nonsense, I finally went into the urgent care clinic and they told me "you and everyone else around here has that same thing". They prescribed an albuterol (sp?) inhaler and a Z-pack which seemed to do the trick for the most part. Still feel a little bit of restricted breathing but I'm chalking that up to allergies at this point.

I am generally a pretty healthy individual with some hypertension (take lisinopril) but take a lot of vitamins including Emegenc-C and I'm closing in on 60 years old this year so I probably should be more careful...lol

[Hojczyk]

My wife had the something..four weeks around the last week in February

There are 6 million visitors to Orland a month..

but Florida has not had many cases

all got it before... these are just the end or second wave

[bert]

——Does the flatness/steepness of the curve possibly indicate that the virus might have been in the US in the very early fall is I suspect?——

I don’t know.

There actually three curves. One is the projection, in the middle and above and below are margin of error curves.

[exDemMom]

No, it was not Covid-19.

The first Covid-19 case occurred in China on Nov 17, 2019. By Dec 15, 2019, 27 people were infected.

In order for the virus to have spread in a single month from one case in China to millions of cases all over the world, each sick person would have to infect thousands of others in a very short time. No one has contact with thousands of people on a daily basis.

Any number of respiratory viruses are in circulation at any given time. Contracting a respiratory virus does not mean you had Covid-19.

[copaliscrossing]

Forgot to mention in my post directly above that I have a doctor appointment on Monday for a blood pressure check and I’m going to see if he will order me a test for the presence of the anti-body to see if I did have “it”.

[Gamecock]

We saw a ton of oddly ill patients starting in January. One of my patients was admitted and intubated.

I saw some funky pnemonias.

I became ill in February and my wife right behind me.

I can’t prove it, but I was seeing patients with it in January.

[fr_freak]

From a purely logical standpoint, it is a virtual certainty that this virus was in the US no later than November 2019.

China had their Wuhan freakout beginning in December, and we can safely assume that it would have taken at least a few weeks of the virus being passed around before they got to the point of freaking out, therefore it was circulating in Wuhan and elsewhere in China since November at the latest, and we had untold thousands of Chinese flying back and forth to the US at various points of entry EVERY DAY until mid January.

Simple math tells us the virus has been here months longer than is being considered.

[DugwayDuke]

Yes, but the curves I’ve seen do not show the early fall months of 2019. Extrapolating from Dec 2019, one would suspect that there were significant infections in the last four months of 2019.

[Mom MD]

I had something very nasty in January. I suspect it was covid and want to get the antibody test. It certainly could have gotten lost in the middle of a worse than usual flu season