Just curious? How many of you feel you possibly had Covid before it was a thing? (Australia, workers)

[Reads2MUCH]

This may seem like a strange question, but I assure you I'm totally serious. In December of 2019, just before we first started hearing about a virus that would soon spread across the globe, both I and my two business partners got what we thought was the flu. My business partners are a married couple, and they got sick first. Then, a few days after they first showed symptoms, I myself got sick. We were all only sick for about a week, but we all experienced some of the "tell-tale" symptoms of Covid. The one that really got me thinking we might have had Covid was the loss of our sense of taste/smell. This lasted about a week after our normal "sick" symptoms had passed. As far as the sickness was concerned, for us it seemed like a mild case of the flu. But I personally have been sick many times yet I've never lost my sense of taste/smell before. So I find myself wondering if we could have actually contracted Covid literally at the beginning of the epidemic. Especially since none of us has had so much as a cold since then, and we have literally worked throughout the entire crisis because we are considered "essential" workers. I myself am actually "twice" essential, as I am 1/3 owner of an interior trim company and the manager of a small restaurant in my home town. So I have literally been in the thick of it the entire time, as have both of my business partners, yet none of us has been sick at all in nearly a year and a half. So the way I figure it, either we 3 have super boosted immune systems that simply stop Covid in it's tracks or....we already had it. Or...we're just super freaking lucky So those are my thoughts and I was just wondering if any of my fellow City Data users feel that they too may have had this corona virus very early on and not even realized you had Covid 19 until it became the biggest news maker of 2020.

PS. Let me add a little additional info. I work primarily in a very busy suburb of a decent sized city which is home to an international airport. I also work with the public on a daily basis, which I believe is most likely how I would have come in contact with the virus in the early days of the epidemic.

[saltine]

I know others that have suggested this. I wouldnt doubt it. I also dont doubt theres been other strains tested on the populace without ever being acknowledged.

[Reads2MUCH]

Originally Posted by saltine

I know others that have suggested this. I wouldnt doubt it. I also dont doubt theres been other strains tested on the populace without ever being acknowledged.

Okay. Well, I wasn't exactly suggesting I'd been intentionally infected or anything like that. I was more suggesting that I may have been among the first in the this country to actually contract the virus before we knew it was anything different/special. I sure as hell hope nothing was being tested on me or anyone else.

[greywar]

The loss of smell/taste is one of the symptoms that we dont see in tons of other things, so its certainly possible.

[mike0618]

I am sure Covid-19 was in usa by December 2019 if not earlier. I had it in January 2020. With the amount of business people and college students of Chinese descent who went back and forth between the 2 countries while china was having a mass outbreak, theres no way it didn’t happen to make its way here during that time.

[Reads2MUCH]

Originally Posted by greywar

The loss of smell/taste is one of the symptoms that we dont see in tons of other things, so its certainly possible.

Exactly! If it weren't for that, I'd probably figure I just had the flu. But never in my life have I lost my sense of taste/smell, and I was literally down for nearly 2 weeks with the flu when I was a kid.

[Malloric]

Antibody tests are around $50 and easily obtained.

[das8929]

I had a weird cold-like illness in late December 2019 but had no fever. I was just so fatigued and achy, had a bad cough too. It was unlike any illness I had experienced. Didn’t think it could be the flu since I always had very high fever whenever I’ve had it. I was pretty much bed-ridden for 4 days straight just slept and slept, it hurt to move. I haven’t been sick at all not even a cold since, which is odd, I usually get sick a couple times a year.

[SeaOfGrass]

I've posted about this before. I believe I had first heard something about COVID, something going on in China, in January of 2020, so I was aware of it. Soon after that, I remember feeling lightly feverish and my breathing was slightly more shallow than normal. It lasted for longer than I'm usually sick, maybe a couple/few weeks. I've always seemed to get mild fevers here and there, usually when I'm tired, so I just assumed it was my body fighting off something. It usually goes away pretty quickly. But I've never had the shallow breathing before. The symptoms were so mild that it didn't even occur to me until later that maybe I had had a mild version of it. It just makes me curious. And I'm surprised it hasn't gone through all of us at this point.

[Sethrak]

We think we had it, family wedding ~ everyone was sick, some hardly noticed it ~ I and one other were quite sick, on person who flew in from Australia did not get sick at all ```

We think, I think most Americans were exposed late 2019 or early 2020 ```