#coronavirusisntreal

I had identical, mild but unusually long-lasting flu-like symptoms for a month-and-a-half in Jan-Feb, but no tests were available at the time. Who knows.

A coworker of mine had identical symptoms with multiple relapses from November through mid January, brought it back from what became the center of the Italian outbreak two months later. She never saw anyone about it because she hasn't been able to find a doctor in town that's accepting patients since she moved here about a year and a hal ago. I caught it when she had a bad relapse during a shift we shared in January, was like nothing I've had before. Two days of feeling fine except for a dry cough then hit really suddenly. Fever, severe fatigue, pain in my lungs and wheezing when I breathed, but no upper respiratory stuff at all. No congestion, no sore throat (just a gravelly dry feeling really deep in it) Was like that for two full days, then ramped down over the next two days or so and was around 8 or 9 days from exposure to feeling more or less OK. I was calling if flu but who knows. AFAIK I've never had flu in my life before that so I have no basis for comparison. In late December and early January Italy had a severe flu outbreak with about 250,000 known cases, whatever that was is probably what I had.

I have no idea if the Italian flu cases were flu as in a quarter of a million people were actually tested and had confirmed flu infections, or a quarter of a million people were treated for flu like symptoms over the month before COVID was officially identified there. I would be very surprised if it was the first one, even in a country with a good medical system like Italy.


As far as what I had it's probably mot because there are starting to be cases of people recovering from COVID and then getting reinfected days after they're released from care.