4 ms·

I'm really skeptical of the "I had a bad cough in late 2019, must have been COVID claims". I saw quite a number of them on social media last year. It seemed l

I'm really skeptical of the "I had a bad cough in late 2019, must have been COVID claims". I saw quite a number of them on social media last year. It seemed like people were eager to grab some sort of celebrity or a part of a conspiracy. Some of the people got really angry with me when I confronted their claims with skepticism. It's like they felt personally insulted. The truth is, people get upper respiratory illnesses quite often. I had a nasty upper respiratory illness in late 2016 after a trip to London. I was miserable for weeks. If it had been late 2019, I could have joined in on the chorus of people claiming to have had something that "surely might have been COVID".

wolverine876 5y ago
I have a weird itch on my a-- right now. It is the next pandemic.
giarc 5y ago
I agree with your comment. When I look at various respiratory viral dashboards for North America, we had a pretty typical year in 2019-2020. Therefore all these people likely just had some viral infection (flu, enterovirus, rhinovirus etc). The crazy part is how much that has changed now though. Now if they said they had a bad cold in 2020-2021 flu season (and weren't tested), it is almost 100% chance to be COVID. Almost every other resp virus has disappeared.
guilhas 5y ago
Last November/December was for me the strangest flu season ever, coughing and sneezing for abnormally long period, my coworkers and mother also. And after, in January, I got a really strange what looked like herpes in the face. Followed by finger infection which I had never had, which could mean my immune system was abnormally weak So that's that
- asdff 5y ago
  Thats another variable here. People get older and are more weak over time. Diseases hit you worse in your 30s than in your 20s. Health conditions also tend to crop up after a certain age, like heart conditions that you might blame on a vaccine instead of just you getting older and being predisposed to this condition.
  - guilhas 5y ago
    At the company was a range of people, everyone gets older I know... Also an old relative of a coworker died unexpectedly At the time I remember thinking it could be something from the office AC unit, dirty filters etc... It might not have been Covid, maybe something unidentified, but definitely something abnormal

wolverine876 5y ago

I have a weird itch on my a-- right now. It is the next pandemic.

giarc 5y ago

I agree with your comment. When I look at various respiratory viral dashboards for North America, we had a pretty typical year in 2019-2020. Therefore all these people likely just had some viral infection (flu, enterovirus, rhinovirus etc). The crazy part is how much that has changed now though. Now if they said they had a bad cold in 2020-2021 flu season (and weren't tested), it is almost 100% chance to be COVID. Almost every other resp virus has disappeared.

guilhas 5y ago

Last November/December was for me the strangest flu season ever, coughing and sneezing for abnormally long period, my coworkers and mother also. And after, in January, I got a really strange what looked like herpes in the face. Followed by finger infection which I had never had, which could mean my immune system was abnormally weak So that's that

asdff 5y ago
Thats another variable here. People get older and are more weak over time. Diseases hit you worse in your 30s than in your 20s. Health conditions also tend to crop up after a certain age, like heart conditions that you might blame on a vaccine instead of just you getting older and being predisposed to this condition.
- guilhas 5y ago
  At the company was a range of people, everyone gets older I know... Also an old relative of a coworker died unexpectedly At the time I remember thinking it could be something from the office AC unit, dirty filters etc... It might not have been Covid, maybe something unidentified, but definitely something abnormal