May have gotten COVID in Nov.2019

[travelplus]

I was sailing back with my Father from Barcelona to Tampa on the 2nd leg of our B2B Med Cruise .

 

Got the worst most painful sore throat, coughing and sneezing. I thought it would clear up. It was painful as heck but I still managed to enjoy the Diamond Happy Hour and Drinks.

 

As a responsible cruiser I informed Guest Services as my Father caught it too and other passengers .They sent us to Medical when it did not improve.

 

I asked for a ZPack,Breathing Treatment and Cough Medicine. Theh did not give my Father a Zpack. No quarintine as at the time we did not know about COVID. I sure has heck enjoyed my nightly Cognac. I did not lose my taste. I fotced myself to eat . I have a high tolerance for pain. 

 

I went to sleep early at night but did not miss any shore excursion.

 

I have not gotten sick or tested positive with any COVID variant ,travelled to Vegas in October 2020, went to Hawaii and Israel this past year.

 

I am fully boosted and Vaccinated. 

 

If what I had was COVID I hate to say I enjoyed myself and could not fathom that in just a few months people would be stuck on cruise ships.

 

Man that aft view of us leaving Lisbon with a painful  sore throat and a Cognac will be a lasting memory.

[Board_Shorts]

Don't worry, what you had was not Covid. At that time the virus hadn't reached far enough around the world, China hadn't even had many cases at that point and it was being contained within the country.

 

The main symptoms of Covid variant 'Alpha' (the first Covid) were an extreme uncontrollable cough, respiratory system - difficulty breathing with a very tight chest, low blood oxygen levels and a very high fever that lasts at least three days. Did you have a fever?

 

A sore throat, sneezing, the ability to consume a daily Cognac and still get out of bed to enjoy the activities on the ship tell me that you had a common cold.

 

Nose running, sneezing, etc are not symptoms of Covid, but of a common cold.

 

I'm glad you recovered quickly and have had all of the vaccines - Thank you! 😁

[broadwaybaby123]

I was thinking the same thing about my last cruise.  I was cruising the week before the shutdown, out of NYC.  At the time, NYC was the epicenter of COVID in the US.  Since nobody knew about masks and Social Distancing, there was none of that going on with a ship of 5,000+ passengers.  I came back with what I thought was hay fever that wouldn't go away.  There was no testing available at the time so it's hard to tell if I was fighting it off at that time.

 

I have since gotten both my COVID vaccines and my booster, plus I've been tested over 50 times since then, due to being a healthcare worker.

 

I wear my mask and take all the necessary precautions now.  I even have a portable UV light with me at all times, plus masks and sanitizers.  I am getting tested again today as a precautionary measure.

[GWP-OKC]

The wife and I were also on a cruise in Nov 2019.  When we returned home she came down with the worse flu-like symptoms ever.  But tested negative for the flu.  I tend to disagree that Covid was contained in China Nov 2019.  I think the "barn door was open and the horse got out" months before China even admitted they had a "horse".

[Starry Eyes]

Yeah, I caught a respiratory virus on a cruise in winter of 2019/2020.  Though it was a cold at the time.  After covid hit the news, like the OP (and most everyone else who had a significant cold), I wondered if I’d had an early case. Each time I donated blood in 2020, the blood center reported that I was still covid antibody negative.  So, I really just had a cold.  Outside of China, in the winter of 2019/2020 there were more common colds than covid.  

[smokeybandit]

Covid may well have been around since 2017. So you may well have had it.

[BND]

21 minutes ago, GWP-OKC said:

The wife and I were also on a cruise in Nov 2019.  When we returned home she came down with the worse flu-like symptoms ever.  But tested negative for the flu.  I tend to disagree that Covid was contained in China Nov 2019.  I think the "barn door was open and the horse got out" months before China even admitted they had a "horse".

She tested negative for the flu variants they test for.  She could easily have had another flu/cold or virus.  There are so many viruses going around and a lot of people catch viruses when traveling because they are exposed to illnesses they're not normally around.  

Edited January 15, 2022 by BND

[JT1962]

My daughter and I cruised in Nov 2019 and both had flu like symptoms 4-5 days after returning home - Chills, fever, coughing, extremely tired, etc. It was the worst I have felt in years.  We both tested negative for the flu and strep. We are vaccinated and boosted now and will probably never know for sure what we had in 2019. 

[binro01]

4 hours ago, travelplus said:

Got the worst most painful sore throat, coughing and sneezing. I thought it would clear up.

 Just the last 10 days, I experiences the worst painful sore throat (lasted about 4 days), coughing, a lot of coughing (finally subsiding), sneezing. Loss of voice. I usually never get colds, and if I do they last maybe 3 days or so. I been on a steady stream of NyQuil so I could sleep. I finally feel like I'm getting over this bug. Before this, I have not been sick for well over 8 years, not even a sniffle.

In the heat of this battle, I went to take a COVID test just to make sure. I'm vaccinated and boosted. Negative. Just a bad URI. Its going around along with Omicron. Its highly contagious. My guess is you had something similar, and not COVID.

[jean87510]

that's actually odd because I was on the November Brilliance of the Seas TA and I was sick after the cruise with flu like symptoms.  I was ok after rest and OTC rx.  That was a great TA.  

[Junkhouse]

Arrived in Rome on Christmas Eve in 2019 and 3 days later caught something that took a month to get over.  Lost my sense of taste and smell.  I have had the flu and pneumonia and this was nothing like those.  Upper chest congestion that had me constantly coughing.  Went to the doctor after 2 weeks, I was given some drugs that they said would make me feel better in about 3 days.  Well it took 2 more weeks.

[LocoLoco1]

In Ecuador early 2020 I was amongst a great many businessmen from Wuhan China. Once home in USA I lost my sense of taste… felt crappy. Later, Covid made the News & hammered Ecuador big-time with US Embassy arranging a massive Airlift out. Hardly made the news…

[Natitude61]

We were on Serenade early 2020, disembarked on Super Bowl Sunday. My husband, who never gets sick, had fever and chest congestion. Got swabbed for the flu and was negative; MD said it was likely another URI and sent him on his way with some meds. I had a low-grade fever but a nasty, nasty cough that I couldn’t shake for a good month or two. There was also a fairly large group on our ship from China.

 

I’m an RN, and worked five days a week in a hospital through the entire pandemic and never came down with Covid. Nor did my husband. Neither of us are good about masking or social distancing  🙊

 

He insists we both caught Covid on that cruise. Who knows  🤷‍♀️

[barbeyg]

In our corporate headquarters, I know 4 healthy people who came down with pneumonia December 2019, all within a week or two of one another. None worked in close confines, but encountered one another regularly. Took one girl 6 weeks to recover. X-rays of her lungs were a mess.  I remember all of us talking about how unusual that was, at the time. So many so sick and all at the same time.
 

My husband’s mother died in a nursing home in January 2020, after getting very sick very fast, with pneumonia.  
 

We also think the horse was out of the Covid barn earlier than thought. 

Edited January 16, 2022 by barbeyg

[toad455]

I had COVID in Dec. 2019. Symptoms were night sweats, chills and extreme fatigue. No cough though. Found out via an antibody test in May 2020 that I had it and connected the two. Haven't had it again thankfully. I get tested monthly and am fully vaccinated and boosted.