[makoto12]

My partner and myself got very sick on holiday in Germany, December 2019. Didn't think too much of it, until the symptoms of Covid started getting published and they all sounded eerily familiar. By the time antibody tests were available in my country it was too late. But no doubt in my mind it was covid. This just adds evidence to that fact

[hgibbs]

But the symptoms of covid are very similar to e.g. the flu, and this would make you and your partner some of the first people on Europe to have had covid (given exponential increase in case counts it cannot have circulated for long before early 2020). My prior on anybody having covid in Europe in Dec 2019 is extremely low, I think yours should be too - just having been really sick is no evidence at all.

[martneumann]

I know half a dozen people who say the same. I wouldn't give this too much importance. The flu feels very similar to Covid. When I had Covid, I thought I had a normal cold with allergies. I don't think you can assume you had it because of similar symptoms.

[estaseuropano]

There are hundreds of similar diseases, in particular in the set of flu strains that are endemic. These can hit you hard with very similar symptoms.

[makoto12]

maybe you're right. but loss of taste and smell. sick for 2 weeks and symptoms that persisted for 6+ months, obviously can't prove anything, but everything was suspiciously similar to covid. So it doesn't surprise me to see covid being found in dec 2019 samples in europe

[pergadad]

I cannot claim any special expertise on this but the CDC lists loss of taste and smell as a common symptom of flu and covid.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm

[makoto12]

"Change in or loss of taste or smell, although this is more frequent with COVID-19."

ya didn't know this, thanks for the link

[dekhn]

Yes, i used to lose my sense of smell once or twice a year during a sickness well before covid.

[rightbyte]

I had a cold two weeks ago and I lost much of my taste and smell. However, lab test said I was negative for Covid19.

I think I just haven't thought about how colds influence taste before Covid19 sympthoms became known. I have always thought that snot blocked the smell like mechanically, not that the virus actually made the nose not work properly.

[makoto12]

interesting, didn't know non-covid flu strains effected taste and smell

[sofixa]

Small nitpick, but COVID and flu are not the same type of virus - coronaviruses are separate from influenza.

[Cthulhu_]

Yeah, my mum got pretty sick in January 2020 as well; it might have been covid, it might have been seasonal flu, at this point we may never know.

Anyway two years later now and it's my turn, yay. At least I'm vaccinated and it seems to be fairly mild by now.