Was COVID-19 in California in December?

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nortex97
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10:00a, 4/12/20
AG
Some doctors think so;

Quote:
"The virus was freewheeling in our community and probably has been here for quite some time," Dr. Jeff Smith, chief executive of Santa Clara County's government, told county leaders in a briefing.

"This wasn't recognized because we were having a severe flu season," Smith said. "Symptoms are very much like the flu. If you got a mild case of COVID, you didn't really notice. You didn't even go to the doctor. The doctor maybe didn't even do it because they presumed it was the flu."

Smith said Friday that data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and local health departments suggest that the virus was in California "a lot longer than we first believed," likely since "back in December."

There was very little community testing in California in January and February, which contributed to the uncertainty as to when exactly the virus first appeared.

"When public health [officials] tried to track down the start of the disease we weren't able to find, specifically, a contact," Smith added. "That means the virus is in the community already not, as was suspected by the CDC, as only in China and being spread from contact with China."
I believe the mutation rates/charts are rough estimates of when it will mutate, not precise calculations.
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Infection_Ag11
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10:37a, 4/12/20
AG
No
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Dr.HeadCase
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 12:04p, 4/12/20
AG
Infection_Ag11 said:
No
EOT
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SVaggie84
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4:59p, 4/12/20
AG
Husband and daughters caught something bad at the first of February. First time my daughter has had pneumonia since she was a baby, and she's 23.

I never got sick.

I'm wanting one of them to get the antibody test.
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Philip J Fry
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In reply to SVaggie84 • 5:17p, 4/12/20
AG
February is not December. Coming down with it back then is still unlikely, but at least possible.
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Jack Boyett
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 5:22p, 4/12/20
AG
Infection_Ag11 said:
No
Since when has this guy been even a little wrong?
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94chem
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5:37p, 4/12/20
You have to follow the logic of the truthers here. Some of them are starting to do math. They're looking at the infection numbers, and they're realizing that even with greatly relaxed restrictions (think Sweden), it's still difficult to find the infection rate necessary to confer herd immunity. Given the R0 values, we'd need to infect a minimum of 40% of the population, probably much more...much more. The truthers don't have the numbers, but if they can get some evidence that half of us have already had it, they can get the numbers they need. One big problem, though...as nice of a story as it would be, it didn't happen. Good luck to the truthers, though. Just play fair with the numbers. Math doesn't have an opinion.
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flashplayer
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5:38p, 4/12/20
AG
Got off a Disney cruise ship mid January and majority of our party came down w flu like symptoms a couple days after the cruise. Half the crew and all the stateroom hosts spoke Mandarin.

Just in the last few weeks they announced several dozen crew members on the same vessel tested Covid Pos. It has probably been around a while. My understanding is some of those crew members on our voyage had just started working on the ship at the new year.
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PJYoung
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5:38p, 4/12/20
AG
No.





Read that thread. 18 posts.
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Infection_Ag11
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In reply to Fat Bib Fortuna • 5:55p, 4/12/20
AG
MuckRaker96 said:
Dont argue with doctors, they are never wrong!


Doctors are wrong all the time, but genetics aren't.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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hdrydor
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In reply to 94chem • 6:01p, 4/12/20
AG
94chem said:
You have to follow the logic of the truthers here. Some of them are starting to do math. They're looking at the infection numbers, and they're realizing that even with greatly relaxed restrictions (think Sweden), it's still difficult to find the infection rate necessary to confer herd immunity. Given the R0 values, we'd need to infect a minimum of 40% of the population, probably much more...much more. The truthers don't have the numbers, but if they can get some evidence that half of us have already had it, they can get the numbers they need. One big problem, though...as nice of a story as it would be, it didn't happen. Good luck to the truthers, though. Just play fair with the numbers. Math doesn't have an opinion.


What, and who are "truthers"?
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MaxPower
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In reply to nortex97 • 6:05p, 4/12/20
nortex97 said:
Some doctors think so;

Quote:
"The virus was freewheeling in our community and probably has been here for quite some time," Dr. Jeff Smith, chief executive of Santa Clara County's government, told county leaders in a briefing.

"This wasn't recognized because we were having a severe flu season," Smith said. "Symptoms are very much like the flu. If you got a mild case of COVID, you didn't really notice. You didn't even go to the doctor. The doctor maybe didn't even do it because they presumed it was the flu."

Smith said Friday that data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and local health departments suggest that the virus was in California "a lot longer than we first believed," likely since "back in December."

There was very little community testing in California in January and February, which contributed to the uncertainty as to when exactly the virus first appeared.

"When public health [officials] tried to track down the start of the disease we weren't able to find, specifically, a contact," Smith added. "That means the virus is in the community already not, as was suspected by the CDC, as only in China and being spread from contact with China."
I believe the mutation rates/charts are rough estimates of when it will mutate, not precise calculations.
Why does the preclude it coming from China? That could just means it came from China earlier. That statement alone causes one to question the reliability of the source.
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84AGEC
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9:56p, 4/12/20
AG
Probability is very high
China had it in November
Flights daily.
We didn't have a test so who knows

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panhandlefarmer
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12:09a, 4/13/20
AG
So what did everyone have back in the Fall? I know a lot of people that got very sick with a respiratory infection in Oct-Dec and tested negative for flu. I myself was in bed for a week with a dry unproductive cough and tested negative for flu. I felt like I had stuff in my lungs that wouldn't come up. I was coughing so hard for 2-3 weeks that I felt like a lung would come out. What was it? No one seems to know.
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VaultingChemist
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In reply to panhandlefarmer • 1:13a, 4/13/20
AG
panhandlefarmer said:
So what did everyone have back in the Fall? I know a lot of people that got very sick with a respiratory infection in Oct-Dec and tested negative for flu. I myself was in bed for a week with a dry unproductive cough and tested negative for flu. I felt like I had stuff in my lungs that wouldn't come up. I was coughing so hard for 2-3 weeks that I felt like a lung would come out. What was it? No one seems to know.
A list of potential candidates.....
Quote:
Community-acquired pneumonia.

RVs are increasingly recognized as a cause of community-acquired pneumonia in adults, especially the elderly, and children (50). Overall, studies published to date suggest that up to 20 to 25% of cases of community-acquired pneumonia in adults are due to RVs (94), with influenza viruses and rhinoviruses the leading causes. The median age in the study by Jennings et al. (94), which evaluated RSV, PIV, adenovirus, rhinovirus, and CoVs in adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia, ranged from 51 years for adenovirus pneumonia to 81 years for PIV pneumonia. RSV, PIV, CoVs, adenovirus, enterovirus, HBoV, and hMPV have also been described as causes of community-acquired pneumonia in young immunocompetent adults as well as in the elderly (3, 53, 71). In addition, adenovirus is a well-known cause of pneumonia in military recruits (218).
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Not a Bot
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2:00a, 4/13/20
AG
We had a TON of mycoplasma this year. Still coming in. My mom had it. I had it. Bad cough, feels rough.

Just one of many things that mimic mild symptoms of Covid.

And again, logically if it were in the US earlier we would have seen an earlier surge in hospitalization. The surge in hospitalization came right in line with the virus hitting in February.
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fulshearAg96
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5:44a, 4/13/20
AG
I was in San Fran in early January for work and came down with the worse case Of "flu" of my life. Got home to Houston and wife took me to emergency room the next day. Took over 2 weeks for respiratory issues to clear up with the help of antibodies. Not saying I had Covid but will say this wasn't a typical flu experience.

Would not surprise me at all if Covid was in CA earlier than advertised. Wuhan is heavy tech manufacturing hub.
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Ag_of_08
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In reply to Not a Bot • 5:59a, 4/13/20
AG
Moxley said:
We had a TON of mycoplasma this year. Still coming in. My mom had it. I had it. Bad cough, feels rough.

Just one of many things that mimic mild symptoms of Covid.

And again, logically if it were in the US earlier we would have seen an earlier surge in hospitalization. The surge in hospitalization came right in line with the virus hitting in February.


Question, not condemnation....doesn't that assume the inferred RO is correct? If it's not as contagious, wouldn't that have caused the modeling peak to.push farther out?

Statistical math and epidemiology are not two of my fortes, I'm just curious if it's dependent on that variable, which I understand is more inferred from observation than anything....
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 6:39a, 4/13/20
nortex97
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In reply to PJYoung • 6:43a, 4/13/20
AG
This is good but it's the same data already asserted (threadreader to make it simpler) as proof it wasn't in California in particular in December.

I'd just note that the UW samples of Washington cases isn't dispositive of it being in California. Also, the charts again have this useful caveat that is ignored;

Quote:
ARSCoV2 accumulates genetic changes at about 2 per month along a transmission chain
Tracking genetic changes doesn't give you a day by day exact weekly timeline, no matter what folks want to argue.
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PJYoung
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6:49a, 4/13/20
AG
Hospitalizations didnt surge in December or January.

Zero test samples from January tested positive.

People keep bringing this flawed idea up with absolutely zero evidence to back up their claims hoping it means the virus isnt that deadly and we are already well on our way to herd immunity. I wish it were true but there is no reason to believe it is.
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tysker
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In reply to PJYoung • 7:11a, 4/13/20
AG
I'm not sure people are arguing the genetics but instead the extrapolation that upon testing 3200 people in Seattle, there's no way people in California were exposed earlier. He he even makes this anecdote as part of his evidence:

Quote:
Given travel connections between WA and CA there is no way that COVID-19 was widely circulating in CA, but we see zero cases in WA

Both sides are making the same arguments just from different perceptive and seemingly finding and weaponizing the science and data they need to prove their priors. Could there be other factors? Could there have been a fourth, less virulent, strain in the US that basically went floating around undetected and burnt out?
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tysker
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In reply to PJYoung • 7:18a, 4/13/20
AG
But even hospitalizations only surge when the virus hits certain demographics in certain locations, at least that is what the current evidence is showing. So it seems possible, from a non-genetic perspective, that the virus could have been contacted and never was able to spread to a super-spreader and was never spread to distinctively vulnerable group to create a clustering effect that would have resulted in a surge.
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Infection_Ag11
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In reply to [removed post] • 8:34a, 4/13/20
AG
JJMt said:
Infection_Ag11 said:
MuckRaker96 said:
Dont argue with doctors, they are never wrong!


Doctors are wrong all the time, but genetics aren't.
Several thoughts:

First, aren't those genetic studies limited by their sample size? Aren't their conclusions limited to the genetics of their samples? Wouldn't they need to take samples from a much wider geographic area in order to conclude that COVID-19 was not present anywhre in the US prior to February 21?

Second, what exactly do you mean by genetics? Isn't genetics done by people? Are the people doing the genetics never wrong? Could there be any room for debate or discussion in reviewing the data that the people who did the study considered? Could the people who did the study have made a mistake?


The short answer to most of your questions is no for all practical purposes.

The long answer is much more complicated and would take hours and multiple post.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Infection_Ag11
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In reply to PJYoung • 8:36a, 4/13/20
AG
PJYoung said:
Hospitalizations didnt surge in December or January.

Zero test samples from January tested positive.

People keep bringing this flawed idea up with absolutely zero evidence to back up their claims hoping it means the virus isnt that deadly and we are already well on our way to herd immunity. I wish it were true but there is no reason to believe it is.


We can also give a two or so week window, without any other data other than sequential genetic analysis, for when it arrived in the US. And we have a lot more info than that.

People are going to believe what they want however.
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tysker
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In reply to PJYoung • 8:44a, 4/13/20
AG
PJYoung said:
Hospitalizations didnt surge in December or January.

Zero test samples from January tested positive.

People keep bringing this flawed idea up with absolutely zero evidence to back up their claims hoping it means the virus isnt that deadly and we are already well on our way to herd immunity. I wish it were true but there is no reason to believe it is.
Also what is meant by this? Do mean genetic tests or like on-the-ground test?

If you mean on-the-ground test, arent even as many as 30% of the current well constructed and applied tests coming back as possibly false negative and as many as 70% of flu tests come back as negative? Let alone the bad tests we had back in Jan and Feb. Again that seems like a major flaw in sample size and possibly a poisoning of the well.
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 8:45a, 4/13/20
Infection_Ag11
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In reply to Not a Bot • 8:49a, 4/13/20
AG
Moxley said:
We had a TON of mycoplasma this year. Still coming in. My mom had it. I had it. Bad cough, feels rough.

Just one of many things that mimic mild symptoms of Covid.

And again, logically if it were in the US earlier we would have seen an earlier surge in hospitalization. The surge in hospitalization came right in line with the virus hitting in February.


This is also a form of recall bias, where people are taking special note of "flu negative" flu-like symptoms this flu season moreso than prior years because of COVID. Physicians are just as guilty of this as anyone.

The rapid flu test only has about a 70% sensitivity, and as you said many other things can cause a similar illness severity (mycoplasma, HMV, RSV in certain populations, adenovirus, etc. We see a ton of this every ear, people are just more aware of it this year.
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bay fan
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In reply to SVaggie84 • 8:53a, 4/13/20
S
SVaggie84 said:
Husband and daughters caught something bad at the first of February. First time my daughter has had pneumonia since she was a baby, and she's 23.

I never got sick.

I'm wanting one of them to get the antibody test.
My son was sick as I've ever seen him end of January after returning by flight from a weekend in Arizona. An Antibody test would be interesting but none of rest of us got it so prob just the flu.
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evestor1
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9:10a, 4/13/20
Sky is blue in china
Sky is not blue in USA

...

Airplanes fly in the blue sky in China
Airplanes do not fly in blue sky in USA

...

Coronavirus running through China in late 2019
Coronavirus not running through USA in late 2019 ... probably not about 14 days after first plane flight from China in late 2019


...

Doctors in USA circa December 2019 - we have no idea what your lung problem is b/c you tested negative for strep and flu...why can't you breath? Probably something unknown...

Doctors in USA circa April 2020 - we now know that you had RV-XYZ ... duh everybody knows that now and we knew it then. By the way - Coronavirus was not in the USA until February 29, 2020. Exponentially, everyone knows that!


To make a claim that c19 was not in USA or any other country at a given time seems less than honest to me.
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Infection_Ag11
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In reply to [removed post] • 9:11a, 4/13/20
AG
JJMt said:
nm


The Twitter thread posted earlier is a good place to start.





The bottom line is we have sequenced thousands of samples in the US and can follow, step by step, the viral progression. All samples isolated from every part of California can be traced back to a known introduction into the population. There are no "mystery strains" that emerged from California independently and no isolated samples with uniquely divergent sequences.

What we're seeing in response to this information are various forms of the argument from incredulity, predetermination bias, etc. The best comparison I can give is the widespread denial of evolution in general. Many of the same arguments used on the internet to try and discredit a definitive genetic answer to the question "when did COVID arrive in the US" are derivations of very old, long since dismissed arguments against evolution by natural selection as the source of the diversity of life.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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Infection_Ag11
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In reply to evestor1 • 9:23a, 4/13/20
AG
evestor1 said:
Sky is blue in china
Sky is not blue in USA

...

Airplanes fly in the blue sky in China
Airplanes do not fly in blue sky in USA

...

Coronavirus running through China in late 2019
Coronavirus not running through USA in late 2019 ... probably not about 14 days after first plane flight from China in late 2019


...

Doctors in USA circa December 2019 - we have no idea what your lung problem is b/c you tested negative for strep and flu...why can't you breath? Probably something unknown...

Doctors in USA circa April 2020 - we now know that you had RV-XYZ ... duh everybody knows that now and we knew it then. By the way - Coronavirus was not in the USA until February 29, 2020. Exponentially, everyone knows that!


To make a claim that c19 was not in USA or any other country at a given time seems less than honest to me.


America's "patient zero" arrived from Wuhan on January 15th in Seattle, Washington. This was the first patient to test positive but may not have been the true first case, though all the initial Washington cases were identical isolates. We've had other initial introductions of other strains from Europe since then. As had been clearly demonstrated, all current COVID isolates can be genetically traced back to their initial introductions into the population.

To make the claim that COVID could not have been here prior to January is the only claim the data supports.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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84AGEC
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 9:26a, 4/13/20
AG
Why was this person identified
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Dr. Not Yet Dr. Ag
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In reply to evestor1 • 9:37a, 4/13/20
evestor1 said:
Sky is blue in china
Sky is not blue in USA

...

Airplanes fly in the blue sky in China
Airplanes do not fly in blue sky in USA

...

Coronavirus running through China in late 2019
Coronavirus not running through USA in late 2019 ... probably not about 14 days after first plane flight from China in late 2019


...

Doctors in USA circa December 2019 - we have no idea what your lung problem is b/c you tested negative for strep and flu...why can't you breath? Probably something unknown...

Doctors in USA circa April 2020 - we now know that you had RV-XYZ ... duh everybody knows that now and we knew it then. By the way - Coronavirus was not in the USA until February 29, 2020. Exponentially, everyone knows that!


To make a claim that c19 was not in USA or any other country at a given time seems less than honest to me.
I see more unknown viral respiratory illness every single year compared to any other respiratory illness combined (bacterial pneumonia, influenza, RSV, etc.). It was not any different this year. Most of the time it is likely metapneumovirus, or false negative flu screens, or non-novel coronavirus, or adenovirus, etc. All of these viruses are treated exactly the same, so most physicians don't see a compelling reason to find out exactly what caused it.

Your coughing and shortness of breath in December was not due to CV unless you happened to be in Wuhan at that time.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
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evestor1
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In reply to Infection_Ag11 • 9:40a, 4/13/20
Quote:
America's "patient zero" arrived from Wuhan on January 15th in Seattle, Washington. We've had other initial introductions of other strains from Europe since then. As had been clearly demonstrated, all current COVID isolates can be genetically traced back to their initial introductions into the population.

To make the claim that COVID could not have been here prior to January is the only claim the data supports.

To make the claim that COVID was in the USA prior to January is definitely supported by the data you are using.

What claim can be made over citizens' speculative widespread respiratory issues in Nov-Dec? I am under the assumption that no cv19 testing was done. Am I allowed to say my data supports that there was something being missed?




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