[Pierre]

Originally Posted by nomadking

Nonsense, it was already here long before then. As the Blood Transfusion Service study found, 1.5% of Londoners were carrying the virus by 1st week of March.

it may of been here long long before then.

Said to have originated from Wuhan, China, in December, a recent study by researchers at University College London and the University of Reunion Island, found COVID-19 may have made the jump from its initial host to humans at some point between October 6 and December 11.

Looking at the Office of National Statistics (ONS) official death figures, Express.co.uk identified what experts have now determined to be a "spike" in fatalities in England and Wales between adults 45-85+ starting on week 45 of 2019 – November 8 – with the same figures being almost 1,000 deaths higher than the previous year and around 200-300 higher than the five-year average.

The ONS confirmed to Express.co.uk that there were 129,821 deaths registered in England between October and December 2019, 6,752 more deaths than the five-year average (2014 to 2018) for this quarter and that age-specific mortality rates significantly increased between this same timeframe for all age groups aged 75 years and over, in comparison to the year before.

Dr Jason Oke of the University of Oxford says these deaths need to be studied further to understand their implications.

He told Express.co.uk: “I’m interested in looking at this excess in deaths, but it depends on what you compare to, if you look back at other data, the expectation of what happens is quite variable year-on-year.

“Life expectancy has plateaued now, but it’s been going up for a while, so you would expect, perhaps, fewer deaths in later years.

“I think these comparisons are tricky – it’s very easy to see the effects of COVID, because the jump is so large – there’s no mistaking those because the magnitude is so big.

“But, smaller deviations are a bit more difficult to determine what’s going on, or whether that’s just an artefact.”

Dr Oke said there were no doubts over a significant rise in deaths among the elderly before Christmas, but said it was hard to put a finger on whether they could be attributed to coronavirus without further investigation.

People may of have been dying from it before it was even named. who knows.

I can't wait until anti-body tests are freely available, as I suspect Mrs Pierre had it in December.