So, who here genuinely thinks they may have already had this virus and gotten over it?

[Epona]

If anyone knows whether there is a proper term for what I've described as 'diagnosis by balance of probabilities' (pick the most likely thing and then think again if the treatment doesnt yield the expected results) then I would love to know what its called.

House (LOL)

 

[stuff_it]

To be fair, many diagnoses of disease of various types are not dependent on a test, in most cases observation of symptoms and anecdotal evidence of the progression of illness is sufficient for diagnosis - any health professional will tell you that.

I had scarlet fever as a child, I did not have a test to prove it, the GP looked at my symptoms which were classic symptoms of scarlet fever and I got better when treated for scarlet fever. Ergo, I had scarlet fever. A test would have been a waste of time and resources. If someone presents with itchy raised bumps and a fever during a chicken pox outbreak, they don't need a test to confirm chicken pox.

Self isolating if you have symptoms is far more important for most people than knowing for sure that you have it. The main reason for testing right now for the Rona is so that key workers can get back to the coal face (sorry)

Testing is also pretty vital if you are from the "let's find out just how virulent this new disease is, and exactly what the real death rate from catching it is likely to be.

 

[Dogsauce]

Yes that last thing you said is the state of things I want to moan about most, it drives me mad how much of what should be routine is seen as frivolous waste that has to be fought for to get access to. It shouldnt be that way, and one of the reasons Germany was better able to have a diagnostics industry that could scale up to meet some of the challenges of this pandemic is that they take that side of things more seriously during normal times.

I wonder if countries with the private healthcare model have better testing capabilities? I’ve seen anecdotal stuff from the US about doctors ordering loads of tests for things because they’re able to profit from charging for them (something you get with vets in this country occasionally which work on the same model). Not that I want to give any ammunition to the privatising lobby, but suspect that might play a part.

 

[David Clapson]

My brother's had it. He was in intensive care for a few days. He seems to be on the mend. Thank goodness...his girlfriend is expecting a baby soon. She had it too, but didn't have to go to hospital. Fortunately they are very rich and well connected, so a few strings were pulled and they got the best treatment available from the NHS. I can't tell you who he is because the family history's a bit complicated...wrong side of the blanket and all that.

 

[Orang Utan]

My brother's had it. He was in intensive care for a few days. He seems to be on the mend. Thank goodness...his girlfriend is expecting a baby soon. She had it too, but didn't have to go to hospital. Fortunately they are very rich and well connected, so a few strings were pulled and they got the best treatment available from the NHS. I can't tell you who he is because the family history's a bit complicated...wrong side of the blanket and all that.

Boris Johnson omg

 

[Epona]

Testing is also pretty vital if you are from the "let's find out just how virulent this new disease is, and exactly what the real death rate from catching it is likely to be.

Oh definitely, very much has a value in terms of statistical analysis - and the wider the testing, the more statistically valuable the data is.
On the basis of "I wonder if I had it?" probably not so much

 

[elbows]

I read a story the other day that reminded me of why I felt the need to use the wanky phrase 'the timetable of this disease as it is currently understood' earlier in this thread.

Its a story that still does not make dates like November 2019 a good fit for catching Covid-19 in the UK or almost anywhere else, but it does start to push against the idea that the formally identified first cases in this country were an accurate guide to the actual timing:

Coronavirus doctor's diary: The strange case of the choir that coughed in January

Dr John Wright is intrigued by some singers who became ill long before the UK's first known Covid-19 case.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jane Hall is a member of two choirs - the Voices of Yorkshire choir and the All Together Now Community Choir - and she says that Covid-like symptoms affected members of both, starting in early January.

Among the first singers to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17 or 18 December and developed a hacking cough.

 

[elbows]

Fergus Walsh of the BBC has written of his surprise at having antibodies to this virus some time ago.

Then he reveals how he had pneumonia in January, but places too much faith in when the first official community (non-travel related) case was detected in the country. People on twitter were keen to educate him on this stuff, including asking whether he read that article about the choir.

Fergus Walsh: 'I was gobsmacked to test positive for coronavirus antibodies'

The BBC's medical correspondent tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies but was unaware he'd had it.

www.bbc.co.uk

(go onto twitter to see further replies)

 

[circleline]

Yeah, Fergus didn't go abroad at all, apart from 'Christmas in Brussels'..

 

[elbows]

Follow-up piece by Fergus Walsh. Includes a section about Andy Gill.

Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

The author Catherine Mayer believes it's possible her late husband Andy Gill - guitarist and co-founder of Gang of Four - may have been one of the earliest to be struck down by Covid-19.

She spoke movingly about his death on the Coronavirus Newscast last month.

Andy returned from a tour in China on 23 November 2019 and fell ill in December with many symptoms of Covid-19. He died in St Thomas's hospital on 1 February. Doctors did consider whether it might be this new virus they were hearing about, but the timelines didn't seem plausible.

Then a story broke that suggested coronavirus had already been in Europe in December. A hospital near Paris retested old samples from a pneumonia patient which tested positive for coronavirus.

Catherine wrote to Andy's specialist, who agreed it might have been coronavirus - but how to prove it? She began doing her own detective work and discovered that his tour manager had fallen seriously ill with a respiratory infection too. And, sadly, Catherine's stepfather also died, on 22 December. "It raises all sorts of questions for me on a personal level," she says.

"The key question is, could this have been the coronavirus Covid-19?" asks Prof Tom Solomon, director of the UK Emerging Infections Research Unit at the University of Liverpool. "I think the simple answer is yes, it could have been. We now know the virus was around longer - new viruses are always around before you spot them."

 

[kropotkin]

If anyone knows whether there is a proper term for what I've described as 'diagnosis by balance of probabilities' (pick the most likely thing and then think again if the treatment doesnt yield the expected results) then I would love to know what its called.

It is called a "clinical diagnosis"

 

[girasol]

I only suspect I had it, mid February though. Symptoms match, especially difficulty breathing, headache, dry cough, knocked out for a week, then two more weeks getting over it, feeling tired. Never had a flu like that. But it could have just been a bad case of flu.

I did isolate from outside world for first week, I always do when I have a cold/flu. My husband didn't get anything. If it was covid I now wonder if he was asymptomatic... The implications of that aren't good. A couple of people at his work did get sick later, but no hospitalisations.

 

[Orang Utan]

I was off in February for a few days. Can’t remember what for so will have to check my work records.

 

[maomao]

There was of course a flu season in the UK this winter as well as the usual winter bugs and a lot of people who had a flu-like illness in December or January will have had the actual flu or similar.

I'm suspicious that me and my wife's 'flu' in late Feb was the Rona but there'd be no way of proving it anyway. Could easily have had it asymptomatically since then so an AB test wouldn't prove anything.

 

[Fruitloop]

If anyone knows whether there is a proper term for what I've described as 'diagnosis by balance of probabilities' (pick the most likely thing and then think again if the treatment doesnt yield the expected results) then I would love to know what its called.

Don't know but it's been the diagnostic method of choice for NHS GPs for a while as far as I can tell. I briefly had a job that came with health insurance and it was interesting the way you could sit there for your allotted ten minutes being told that it was most likely thing x (in this case housemaid's knee) and maybe you could self-refer for physio, and then you drop the magic words 'I have BUPA' and off you go for an MRI or whatever.

After a spot of actual diagnostic medicine it turned out not to be bursitis but a labral tear, so fuck knows what harm the self-refer physio at the hospital might have done. This is alas the two-tier medical system successive governments have been leading us towards for years.