[kcplate]

Oh certainly could have been another respiratory ailment, but the abundance of coincidence to timing, symptoms (which were quite severe), and a general assumption that it’s not over here just make me skeptical of claims that “it couldn’t be covid because…”

[lamontcg]

You can't diagnose COVID on the basis of severity though.

I caught absolutely the worst flu of my adult life (in fact might have been the only case of flu I've caught in my adult life), but it was 12 months earlier in Jan 2019 so I'm positive it wasn't COVID. Ran a 103F fever for 72 hours straight, probably should have gone to the ER, was wiped out for about a month afterwards with post-viral fatigue. Had it happened 12 months later it would have looked a lot like COVID. I suspect it was just H1N1 which was ripping around the globe again after having gone fairly quiet a few years after the 2009 pandemic (and I never caught it back in 2009). Basically the same H1N1 strain was still going around in the 19/20 season.

[taeric]

This does make me wonder if having covid and h1n1 circulating at the same time wasn't much more of the problem than either one in isolation.

Specifically, something was different about that first wave of covid. Yes, it stayed deadly. Early waves that were overwhelming hospitals, though, were tiny compared to what came later.

I also still can't but think covid was far more widespread than we understand, even today. By the time that folks acknowledged that schools could be spreading it, it is hard not to think basically every kid hadn't been exposed.