Talk of The Villages Florida - When did COVID-19 first infect people?

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Originally Posted by BayLady57 (Post 1801459)

I am going to respond to your question of "when did Covid-19 first infect people" and not the Fox new because I did not read it.

I am a still employed veteran R.N. x 42 years and the last 20 working in a primary care clinic for an Uncle Sam healthcare agency. After returning from a cruise in late February which was before the Covid ship really hit the fan, my vacation from my vacation week that followed my cruise both my husband and I were down for the count with what we thought was a garden variety cold. We did not have the classic main Covid symptoms of shortness of breath and fever, but we did have a persistent dry cough and severe fatigue. Before I was due to return to work I did call my employee health office with my concerns about returning to work, although I was better I still had a slight residual cough. I was told "no worries just wear a mask if you still have a cough." Needless to say I do believe both my husband and I had Covid, and I am beyond grateful we survived it especially both being in our 60s with a couple of chronic although controlled disease between us. As a result of my own personal experience I made it a quest to do as much research as I could on Covid-19. To date the most concise data on the timeline of Covid-19 I have found that I tend to agree with is contained in an article written by Tom Squitieri for The American Prospect.The article is on the long side so I will try to relay as brief as I can what it says.

Although patient zero has yet to be identified or disclosed, some infectious disease sources speculate that the first Chinese people could have been infected with Covid-19 as early as August of 2019. The vector of transmission to the U.S likely happened when 300 members of the U.S. Military, DOD members and personnel participated in the Military World Games in Wuhan China in October of 2019. These individuals traveled to and back from China on chartered planes and all these planes departed from and returned to Sea-Tac Airport where coincidently Washington State was one of the 1st states to show a spike in Covid-19 cases. Those that attended those games returned to at least 219 home bases in 25 different states, and unfortunately were never tested for Covid-19 because the authorities that work in the building that begins with a "P" which you can read more about it in the article felt testing of these individuals was not needed because they held to December 31, 2019 as being the "critical outbreak day." Sadly we are now learning that the "critical outbreak day" should likely have been moved up a few months, and had that happened those returning from the Wuhan games would have been quarantined and Covid-19 tested which no doubt would have significantly reduced the transmission of this deadly virus.

BTW, I don't live in TV but my husband are giving your community strong retirement relocation consideration and are doing a lifestyle visit next month which is the reason why I joined this forum, saw your post, and decided to respond to it.

Thank you for posting this and welcome to The Villages if you decide to relocate here. It is a great place to live! Many wonderful people retire here.

A friend of mine was up in Bainbridge Island for Thanksgiving with her grandchildren in 2019. She became the sickest she had ever been in her life for over a month. Two of her grandchildren had to be hospitalized with pneumonia. She commented that a lot of Chinese live there and that Chinese nationals come and go, probably on business and to visit family.

The Chinese government stopped domestic flights from Wuhan throughout China way before they stopped international flights in and out of Wuhan. This too, could explain the spread of the virus outside of China before the rest of the world was told about its existence.