4 ms·

I don't know a single person in NY who wasn't coughing for a week at some point between january and march.

Jenk 6y ago
The problem with this is that people have many reasons to cough. You could say that same statement for any year and it would be accurate.
ryanworl 6y ago
In the last few days of January and two weeks in early February in Manhattan, I (26M) got quite sick. The first few days were pretty bad and I had 102F fever. I had lots of difficulty breathing and a dry cough for around 2 weeks after. A friend/co-worker who sits next to me at work had essentially identical symptoms 12 hours before me lasting for similar amount of time. I think his breathing problems were less bad than mine. The worst hit me on the weekend and I returned to work on Monday with the cough. Around 1 week prior I attended a company holiday party at a large museum with (probably?) one thousand attendees from all over the world. They mostly came from the EU, but at least some from APAC as well. I have no evidence that this was COVID-19, but in retrospect the symptoms matched reasonably well and I haven't been sick since.
- nxpnsv 6y ago
  Get an IgG antibody test if you want to know, should still be visible there
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    It isn’t a fully reliable test though. There are both false positives and false negatives.
    - nxpnsv 6y ago
      Sure, but if you had symptoms AND test positive, it is quite likely (above 95%) the result is correct.
    - shard 6y ago
      For tests in the real world, there are always false positives and false negatives. No test is 100% perfect. The question is always how high those rates are, and thus how well you can rely on the results.
    - rurban 6y ago
      The antibody test has a failure rate of 10%, the PCR test a failure rate of <0.1%. In civilized countries the PCR test is free for critical cases (like travelling abroad or in contact with a positive), or 60 EUR if not.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
Is it possible that your NY social network at the time was part of a fairly insular clique? That might explain why your sample is (potentially) not representative of the overall city or state.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  I have friends all over NYC and Long Island and Jersey City, plus colleagues, their friends and family, etc etc. Collectively we know thousands of people. The CDC officially became aware of coronavirus on Jan 1, and the first documented case in the USA was Jan 20. Now, we could have all had the flu, but really the flu doesn't have such a horrible deep chest cough like we all had in my opinion. Given that some people say coronavirus was circulating as early as November 2019, I think we all had something more than the seasonal flu. By march 2020, the only people I knes who were sick were in nursing homes.

Jenk 6y ago

The problem with this is that people have many reasons to cough. You could say that same statement for any year and it would be accurate.

ryanworl 6y ago

In the last few days of January and two weeks in early February in Manhattan, I (26M) got quite sick. The first few days were pretty bad and I had 102F fever. I had lots of difficulty breathing and a dry cough for around 2 weeks after. A friend/co-worker who sits next to me at work had essentially identical symptoms 12 hours before me lasting for similar amount of time. I think his breathing problems were less bad than mine. The worst hit me on the weekend and I returned to work on Monday with the cough. Around 1 week prior I attended a company holiday party at a large museum with (probably?) one thousand attendees from all over the world. They mostly came from the EU, but at least some from APAC as well. I have no evidence that this was COVID-19, but in retrospect the symptoms matched reasonably well and I haven't been sick since.

nxpnsv 6y ago
Get an IgG antibody test if you want to know, should still be visible there
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  It isn’t a fully reliable test though. There are both false positives and false negatives.
  - nxpnsv 6y ago
    Sure, but if you had symptoms AND test positive, it is quite likely (above 95%) the result is correct.
  - shard 6y ago
    For tests in the real world, there are always false positives and false negatives. No test is 100% perfect. The question is always how high those rates are, and thus how well you can rely on the results.
  - rurban 6y ago
    The antibody test has a failure rate of 10%, the PCR test a failure rate of <0.1%. In civilized countries the PCR test is free for critical cases (like travelling abroad or in contact with a positive), or 60 EUR if not.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

Is it possible that your NY social network at the time was part of a fairly insular clique? That might explain why your sample is (potentially) not representative of the overall city or state.

sushshshsh 6y ago
I have friends all over NYC and Long Island and Jersey City, plus colleagues, their friends and family, etc etc. Collectively we know thousands of people. The CDC officially became aware of coronavirus on Jan 1, and the first documented case in the USA was Jan 20. Now, we could have all had the flu, but really the flu doesn't have such a horrible deep chest cough like we all had in my opinion. Given that some people say coronavirus was circulating as early as November 2019, I think we all had something more than the seasonal flu. By march 2020, the only people I knes who were sick were in nursing homes.