[December 1] ABC News: Coronavirus likely in US as early as December 2019: Study - Scientists found antibodies in last year's blood bank donations.

[Deleted member 3812]

ABC News has reported on this new study that was published in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases that has discovered that blood received from donors in the U.S. had coronavirus antibodies in the blood which suggests that the coronavirus was in the U.S. as early as mid-December 2019 however widespread community transmission wasn't likely until late February 2020 according to the study:

Serologic testing of U.S. blood donations to identify SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies: December 2019-January 2020 | Clinical Infectious Diseases | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

Serologic testing of U.S. blood donations to identify SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies: December 2019-January 2020

Background
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019, with subsequent worldwide spread. The first U.S. cases were identified in January 2020.

Methods
To determine if SARS-CoV-2 reactive antibodies were present in sera prior to the first identified case in the U.S. on January 19, 2020, residual archived samples from 7,389 routine blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from December 13, 2019 to January 17, 2020, from donors resident in nine states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin) were tested at CDC for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Specimens reactive by pan-immunoglobulin (pan Ig) enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) against the full spike protein were tested by IgG and IgM ELISAs, microneutralization test, Ortho total Ig S1 ELISA, and receptor binding domain / Ace2 blocking activity assay.

Results
Of the 7,389 samples, 106 were reactive by pan Ig. Of these 106 specimens, 90 were available for further testing. Eighty four of 90 had neutralizing activity, 1 had S1 binding activity, and 1 had receptor binding domain / Ace2 blocking activity >50%, suggesting the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies. Donations with reactivity occurred in all nine states.

Conclusions
These findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may have been introduced into the United States prior to January 19, 2020.

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Coronavirus likely in US as early as December 2019: Study - ABC News (go.com)

December 1, 2020

The coronavirus may have been present in the United States weeks earlier than scientists realized, according to new government research.

While COVID-19 cases were first identified in China in December, the United States did not report its first case until late January.

A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases Monday suggests that the virus was present in the United States as early as last December.

To come to that conclusion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists analyzed American Red Cross blood donations collected between Dec. 13, 2019, and Jan. 17, 2020, and found evidence of coronavirus antibodies in 106 out of 7,389 blood donations.

"SARS-CoV-2 infections may have been present in the U.S. in December 2019, earlier than previously recognized," the study authors write. "These findings also highlight the value of blood donations as a source for conducting SARS-CoV-2 surveillance."

Of those donations. 39 samples collected from California, Washington and Oregon between Dec. 13 to Dec. 16 contained antibodies. Sixty-seven samples collected in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin in early January contained COVID-19 antibodies.

The virus' presence in the United States in December does not mean that COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, was spreading widely in the U.S. at that time.

"Widespread community transmission was not likely until late February," the authors note.

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[I Don't Like]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

 

[Galaxea]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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I had the same issue around that time of the year which never happens to me, and my daughter also got sick. Her doctor said it was just some sort of virus which will go away. I doubt it was corona but i also work in a place that has people visiting from all over the world, so who knows.

 

[Deleted member 3812]

A company called LabCorp has available for individuals, an antibody test to determine if you had contracted the coronavirus or not:

COVID-19 Antibody Testing | LabCorp

 

[Wingfan19]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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My friend in Indiana got really sick back in February as well. He said it was the worst flu he's ever had and it lasted for about 2 weeks. He just thought he caught a bad bug. Fast forward to a few weeks ago where he's visiting a client's factory and they tell him he doesn't need to wear his "stupid face mask" in their plant. Turns out 3 of the 5 people he interacted with had COVID, yet he didn't get sick. He goes for the test and it comes back negative and they tell him he has the antibodies. That means he 100% had it back in February.

 

[Ariakon44]

There was a segment about this on All In with Chris Hayes. The reporter he spoke to sounded pretty doubtful about the validity of the assertions. More likely (according to the reporter) some of the samples detected were just different Coronaviruses, rather than specifically being Covid-19. I'm not sure who is right, obviously, since I'm not a virologist, I just thought it was interesting that there seems to be some disagreement over whether these samples were truly Covid-19 or not.

Other studies have apparently contradicted the thought that Covid-19 could have been so widespread before the beginning of this year.

 

[EvilChameleon]

So the question then becomes what made widespread community transmission happen in February as opposed to December when nobody was even aware of it?

 

[Novoitus]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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me and nearly everyone I worked with got sick in mid February. We worked in a major transportation hub in a major US city.

symptoms were pretty much all related to COVID as well, minus shortness of breathe

 

[grand]

So the question then becomes what made widespread community transmission happen in February as opposed to December when nobody was even aware of it?

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That's how every emerging infectious disease works. It's basically a mathematical problem of exponential growth

 

[Dis]

This stuff is also why I think my brother had covid in January this year and didn't know it, not the usa but from the UK and covid wasn't a thing even discussed here back in early January this year, my brother got very sick, it was suspected as pneumonia, he ended up going to hospital because of it after 1 day of bad symptoms, the hospital did tests and had no idea what it was but it looked like pneumonia, they then moved him to be extra safe while they figured it out to a complete sterile infectious disease room, he was alone in there and any doctor or nurse etc who went in had to wear a hazmat style suit, they did a bunch of tests for swine flu on him, then bird flu, nothing came back as positive, but he still had signs like pneumonia, but as they ruled out those two things and he started to improve after 3 or 4 days they said he was safe to go home, which he did, but then his gf got really sick too but she got over it as it wasn't as bad as he got it. Only after I left for the usa in feburary was it really started to become a thing here that people started to worry about and tests started being made and given to hospitals etc.

I told him back then it seemed like it was at least possible he had covid but due to no one having any idea about it really in the UK or having tests for it, they couldn't detect he had it and the closet they could get was bird and swine flu which came up negative. It wouldn't surprise me if every country on earth had a bunch of unknown early cases and people just didn't know what it was they had.

 

[jph139]

There was indication that it was in Italy as early as September of last year, so the timetable on this is certainly in flux.

My aunt is sure she had it late last year (in the US) - same symptoms, was in the ICU on a ventilator for a few days, doctors were stumped as to what caused it. I'm pretty dubious about that sort of thing, but when I've read up on other pandemics, I've noticed that they usually look like any other part of history. It's never the earliest case of something, it's just the earliest PROVEN case.

 

[Culex]

I swear I had this in early spring. Lasted 2 weeks and felt like someone was standing on my chest. Legitimately had me scared.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

I had really bad food poisoning last october where i just had diarreha for 3 day straight... But I was in LA so others must have caught it if it was covid.

 

[JDHarbs]

I believe it.

I took my Dad to the AFC Championship back in January. My parents both ended up getting really sick afterward. Both say it was more sick they'd ever been their whole lives. I didn't get sick at all because I wore a bandana over my face due to the cold. In a stadium of thousands filled with people from across the country for a national sporting event, I honestly fully believe that's what they had and both swear by it to this day.

 

[El Bombastico]

As others have said, I might have had this back in late January. I got very sick and for one night I actually had trouble breathing. Notable for me because that has never happened to me before, never had any sort of asthma of breathing disorder.

 

[ultracal31]

Late January and most of Feb I was out with a bad flu that lasted for weeks.

I didn't have issues with smell or taste though

 

[Tlozbj]

This is actually something my family has been trying to make a timeline out of. Though in our case, it leads back a tad to mid-late November 2019. One by one we all got somehow sick, at the time we took it as just our usual seasonal illness. Though, when looking back, we considered it may had been COVID-19, considering the doctor my mom works for had been in October around Europe and had COVID-like symptoms when he returned.

In my case, I developed a extremely high fever that really didn't go down with anything, sore throat, loss of smell and taste, ocassional diarrhea, dry cough, tiredness (almost slept for a whole day, and I still felt down), and a tad of shortness of breath. My aunt suggests it may had just been some sinus, but it would be strange, considering this was a first for the extremeness of the symptoms.

 

[nillapuddin]

My mother, boss, co-worker and myself were so incredibly sick in early February it was crazy. We all just had "the flu" and missed a week and a half plus of work.

When covid became a reality we all kinda joked that we already had it, but I truly believed it. This kinda stuff makes me feel more validated in that stance.

Never would I have imagined we would be here now back then

 

[Frester]

I came down with a bad flu in early February, right before my wedding. Doubt it was COVID since I was able to get over it in 4-5 days, and I tested positive for the flu. Not sure how likely it is that I could've had both simultaneously.

Does make me want to get an antibody test though.

 

[tobascodagama]

January and February is peak flu season. Y'all literally had the flu.

 

[Futureman]

If you had it last December, is there any way to tell that now by a blood test?

 

[hateradio]

In CA, I also had a very bad flu for about three weeks in mid/late January.

A company called LabCorp has available for individuals, an antibody test to determine if you had contracted the coronavirus or not:

COVID-19 Antibody Testing | LabCorp

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Antibody testing may not be reliable though, especially if you had an infection at the start of the year.


I've had antibody and normal covid tests over the last few months. Always negative.

 

[thecouncil]

Yeah, im pretty sure Covid ripped through my family back in early February. Guess we'll never know. My mom said that she was having trouble breathing but didn't tell any of us and we're like, 'nice secret!'

 

[Argyle]

Here's a Twitter thread from one of the people who first detected SARS-CoV2 in Washington state at the beginning of the pandemic. He's not convinced as the antibody tests will have false positives and the amount they detected is very close to the expected false positive rate.

 

[Deleted member 2210]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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This was similar to me. Last week of February, was at work and all of a sudden just felt super weak and cold as fuck, luckily I was getting off.
Drove home and immediately got in bed. I had to ask my roommate to get me some Ibuprofen and water cause I couldn't get out of bed barely an inch.
I had a heated blanket, bunch of pillows and another blanket and I was still chattering my teeth. I didn't eat for like two days, when I could finally stomach something I had the mudbutt.

A company called LabCorp has available for individuals, an antibody test to determine if you had contracted the coronavirus or not:

COVID-19 Antibody Testing | LabCorp

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It was so long ago, don't even think I could do it.

 

[PickledCucumber]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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Same here.

I was in the hospital for something unrelated and the bed next to mine had a woman dealing with pneumonia who had gone to the hospital earlier that week, but felt worse so she went back.

Days later I ended up with a fever and a few other symptoms, though the doctor ended up giving my an antibiotic and instantly felt better so... Maybe not? 🤔

 

[DredPirateStorm]

I'm about 95% sure I had it in late February. I had fever and chills for a week. A couple months later I tested positive for antibodies. I work in an office that has a lot of world travelers. So they probably brought it in earlier in the month of February. I wouldn't be surprised if similar things happened in other offices.

 

[KillingJoke]

I'm telling y'all I think I had this shit first week of February. I never get sick but I woke up at 4am that Monday with cold sweats and my entire body ached. Felt really weak. I made it to work that day going in very late but it was rough. Symptoms seemed to decrease slightly in the evening and I went to bed at like 9 but woke up again around 4am Tuesday with the same thing except I also started hallucinating. I was getting genuinely worried but figured it was just a bad flu though I have not had the flu ar all for, I don't know, well over 10 years. Again symptoms leveled off Tuesday afternoon but a progressively decreasing level of a combo of the symptoms continued all the way until Sunday night when I finally felt normal.

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The wife and I got sick in Feb too. It was the first time we got sick near the same time in 5 years together but the bad days only lasted 2-3 days tops. We were convinced we had it but its hard to tell. We work in a huge tight building with up to 200+ people. Shit would have spread life wild fire.

We took the blood test in June which supposedly tells you if you EVER had it, but both came up negative. So either the test was rushed or it left our system (if that's even a thing?).

 

[Ashhong]

My girlfriend thinks she had Covid early February as well. Had all the symptoms. We were on vacation in Hawai'i at the time and somehow I didn't get sick though which makes no sense.

 

[BLEEN]

Yep. This was obvious. Many people were sick in late 2019 with what many assumed was pneumonia.

 

[Smokey_Run]

A treatment facility I worked at was decimated with respiratory issues in January and February. Every day someone was coming back from the clinic. I got hit with something around the same time. New job, new facility and we just got hit with a wave and I was one of the few left standing.

 

[The Albatross]

Wonder if we're going to revisit the "vape lungs" thing from last winter again... Early in the pandemic some people thought about it and dismissed it earlyish on. Probably not.

My wife was sick last Feb, exhaustion, cold, flu like symptoms, for about 3 days. We joked back then once she felt better "wonder if you got this new flu!" And then in April and may she was like "eehh I dunno.... Maybe I did..." But I never got sick and I'd be fairly high risk, nobody in her family or our close friend group got sick, and we were all living normal social lives into March so I doubt it. Still it's.sometbing we've thought about. MA was an early outbreak area because if that Biogen out break in early March, and we have family/friends who have connections to that conference.

A lot of the symptoms described in the thread though (and my wife's) are typical of the flu. My wife's was probably some flu.

 

[Deleted member 7279]

Had a friend who picked someone up from O'Hare last year who got really sick about a week later (flight arrived right before Christmas, he was sick for about 10 days after Christmas)

Symptoms he described were almost exactly what COVID became.

It honestly would not shock me if it was here much earlier.

 

[InfiniDragon]

Earlier than that actually, November of last year my mom got really sick with a bad cough. Since she has a history of bronchitis and asthma in our family (I have bad asthma myself) and sickle cell, doctors thought it was a combo of a sickle cell crisis and bronchitis at the time.

Come a few months later she had to see the doctor for an upcoming surgery and they asked "when did you get COVID" because they did the test and she was like "I didn't", and they explained they found antibodies most likely from months back.

Lined up with her symptoms perfectly, she got really lucky it wasn't as bad as we now know it could have been.

 

[Deleted member 24052]

I was knocked on my ass for 1.5 weeks in August 2019, had a really hard time breathing and sleeping. Bad fevers, chills, body aches, etc. Dr treated me for bronchitis based on my described symptoms but I didn't take any tests or anything. This whole year I've been wondering if maybe I had covid then, and it's actually been here a bit longer than we realized.

 

[Psyborg]

I did have a friend pass away in Dec 2019 mysteriously of the flu. He was in his 30s and pretty healthy. The thought of Covid being the real illness has definitely crossed my mind.

 

[Yokijirou]

Wonder if we're going to revisit the "vape lungs" thing from last winter again... Early in the pandemic some people thought about it and dismissed it earlyish on. Probably not

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I still think that vape lung thing was a bit weird. Especially since now you can easily get pre filled flavor vapes. And well haven't heard much about it.

 

[Malajax]

I got a conveniently placed flu around that time too... Last week of January ish. Came back from a funeral with a cough and a fever. I was only completely knocked on my ass for 2 days tho.

I do think it was the flu or a really bad cold, but the proximity to covid stuff made me wonder if it was it. But I got over it pretty quickly. Got back on a Wednesday, then back to work by Saturday.

 

[LukeOP]

I'm pretty sure I had it last year in December.
I suddenly found out I was diabetic in Jan/feb and in December I had the worst cough in my life, nearly passed out driving in my car back from work how much I was coughing and trouble breathing.

There are known cases of people getting diabetes after having coronavirus.

 

[Col.IndianaLongnuts]

100% had COVID in early December 2019

 

[Ether_Snake]

Not surprised. The oldest recorded case goes back to November 2019 in China. The first actual case could go further back.

So the question then becomes what made widespread community transmission happen in February as opposed to December when nobody was even aware of it?

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It's just a matter of it reaching a critical infection count that is big enough to start a pandemic. If you accept that there wasn't a Patient 0 in December but earlier, it makes perfect sense that it took a few months for enough infections to occur for a pandemic to start in early 2020.

Coronavirus disease 2019 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

There are several theories about where the first case (the so-called patient zero) originated.[SUP][269][/SUP] According to an unpublicised report from the Chinese government, the first case can be traced back to 17 November 2019; the person was a 55-year-old citizen in the Hubei province.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] There were four men and five women reported to be infected in November, but none of them were "patient zero".[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] By December 2019, the spread of infection was almost entirely driven by human-to-human transmission.

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By December 20th, China had 60 reported cases. If it's true that in the beginning cases were doubling every seven days, that would land you back at 1 case in mid november or so.

 

[Sandcrawler]

I was more sick then I ever remember being this February. Onset was pretty quick (felt myself getting more and more sick over the course of an evening). I was super fatigued and dazed for a few days and had really bad chills. I started to recover after a few days and then it came back, with the most violent diarrhea to boot. It was hard to even make it to the pharmacy. Two family members I saw had the same symptoms a little while before me as well and it took a few days (3 or 4) between me seeing them and me getting sick. I don't recall much trouble breathing though. FWIW I live in NJ.

It was probably just another bug going around at the same time, but the timing kind of makes sense.

EDIT: I had a really distorted sense of taste as well. I could still smell though.

 

[davepoobond]

i feel like whenever those stories about vapers were having lung problems was actually covid. that story completely fell off nearly a month after it was top of the headlines, and i dont think i ever read anything definitive about the causes

 

[HaL64]

All these anecdotes are neat, but I clearly remember Fauci saying the key to getting "back to work" was getting quick and easy antibody tests so we can know who is immune. WTF happened to that?

 

[Ether_Snake]

i feel like whenever those stories about vapers were having lung problems was actually covid. that story completely fell off nearly a month after it was top of the headlines, and i dont think i ever read anything definitive about the causes

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Warning: I got banned for saying that. There is no known cause yet still. They call it EVALI if you want to search more info about it. It is considered to be "on-going" but reporting on the subject has essentially ended in January 2020.

One would assumed scientists have gone back to check the data though.

Edit: They do in fact check because of the similarities, since people usually show up thinking they have covid: https://www.health.state.mn.us/news/pressrel/2020/vaping082120.html

Vaping-associated lung injury patients typically seek care for symptoms similar to severe COVID-19 infection, including cough and shortness of breath. However, testing of these patients found the patients were not infected with COVID-19.

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[cheeseholidays]

There was definitely a period in February where it seemed like everyone in the office was sick.

 

[Pacify]

At the start of the pandemic reaching the US I knew a ton of people who thought they had COVID-19 already. Several even thought they had it in December, until they actually got COVID-19 and it was worse.

Edit: Am I the only one with this experience? If I spoke to anyone back in March, they all thought they had it in mid to late 2019. Even when I had COVID-19 people were asking me questions so they can self diagnose what they had in November. It made me pretty uncomfortable then and in general I think a lot of the self diagnosing lead to reckless behavior from people who thought they were immune.

 

[Forerunner]

I got it mid-late February. I'm fairly confident I got it from Chinese materiel witnesses I was dealing with; they were in the Hubei area before I made contact. I didn't have a fever, but I had a dry cough and bad chest pains. When I went to get tested they turned me away. I tried to explain what I did for a living and they said since I haven't traveled outside of the country they couldn't test me. So I went home and suffered for two weeks. The symptoms got worse and it was the worst I ever felt in my life. The third week I thought I got over it, so I went back to work. However, I started to feel sick again and the chest pains were still there. One day I ended up getting like a mini stroke and I had to go to the ER. This time they tested me (negative) and said everything looked fine. Even to today, I still get these weird chest pains at times, like my lungs are on fire. Also I get really weird heart palpitations I never had in my life. Doctors are no help; they just say everything looks fine. So I'm probably what they consider a long-hauler.

 

[Kendrid]

Same story here, I know of 3 people in February that were sicker than they had ever been in their lives. Either we had a nasty "other flu" or COVID-19 was here.

 

[Keywork]

I had what I thought was the flu in late February/early March, got a flu test and didn't have it. At the time my wife had been in the hospital since February 3rd and with me going in and out every day I'm sure I caught something. It may have been a bad cold virus, but the proximity to the cases ramping up within weeks after that makes me think I possibly had it. Though no one else around me got sick and I was interacting with a lot of people at the time due to my wife's condition and then we had a full-on, big church funeral for my grandmother that brought out well over 200 people. No one that was there got Covid in the weeks that followed as far as we know.