Last week my granddaughter rediscovered in her phone a text diary sounding suspiciously like a COVID-19 experience. Everything she writes below, as a 13-year-old, came weeks before the world knew anything about COVID-19. If so, it shows the symptoms suffered by children and the transmission issues.
18 Dec 2019 - Leaves Sydney for Hong Kong to see her father. (She’s an unaccompanied minor, but she has made many international flights since infancy and lived in HK for eight years.)
23 Dec 2019 - Visit with father to Disneyland, Hong Kong. Disneyland is a major attraction for tourists from mainland China, many of whom travel via the transport hub at Wuhan. It is winter, people are coughing, standing in queues at Disneyland and gripping the rails and handles on all the rides.
26 Dec 2019 - Father sick.
27 Dec 2019 - ‘dad sick again so can’t do anything again today, he has a really high temperature and rlly sick so we didn’t do anything yesterday we just stayed home and he slept and I watched tv but he still sick today’
29 Dec 2019 - ‘maybe change my flight and stay in hong kong because dad's been sick and he’s only getting better now’
30 Dec 2019 – Li Wenliang warns his colleagues at Wuhan Central Hospital about possible outbreak of an illness resembling SARS (Source: Wikipedia)
31 Dec 2019 – Granddaughter getting sick? (very irritable in text exchanges with her mother)
31 Dec 2019 - Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified. (Source: WHO website)
2 Jan 2020 - Father out and about again but still unwell
3 Jan 2020 – The following was written on plane back to Sydney, so my granddaughter could tell her mother when she got home. She doesn’t ask the flight crew for help, or ask for a supply of tissues! Rediscovered in her notes on 28 April 2020 (with a few commas added by me to aid the reader):
so snotty!!!! whole jumper drenched, whole flight nose was leaking
short of breath, hard to breathe (feels like no oxygen, and shorter faster breaths) head feeling a bit warm all around with a headache mainly at front of head
random sneezing attacks – sneezing like 10 times in one minute, happened about 5 times on the flight, everyone a little pissed off
really tired, not like tired because of sleep but just really not there and can barely walk to bathroom because i feel so tired
sore throat and flemmy, not aching, just like coarse and dry but not dry because covered in flem and yucky snot
nose and sore throat/chest main issue, nose dripping while i write this!!'
3 Jan 2020 - text from queue at Sydney Airport Immigration to her mother waiting in the Arrivals Hall ‘i am [expletive] sick and i have to stand here for like 40 minutes i reckon' Her mother asks ‘did you get a ticket for the automatic one?’ and granddaughter replies ‘no u have to be 16 … literally like heathrow … god I miss hk’
Returns home and sleeps for 24 hours. How many people did my granddaughter infect with her ‘bug’ on this flight and at Sydney airport? She said later that her Dad was much sicker than she ever was.
4 Jan 2020 - On social media WHO reports a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province. (Source: WHO website)’
4-9 Jan 2020 – In following days, granddaughter too sick to go to rowing training. One of her three brothers becomes noticeably unwell, while her mother and two other brothers feeling very tired. One brother sleeps for days.
10 -12 Jan 2020 – whole family at Rowing NSW Summer Regatta at Taree. A few days later my granddaughter’s rowing coach (fifty-plus) becomes ‘sicker than she’s ever been in her life’. Another girl who rowed with my granddaughter is also very sick.
12 Jan 2020 - China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19. (Source: WHO website)
13 Jan 2020 - Officials confirm a case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China. (Source: WHO website)
16 Jan 2020 – My daughter and her four children have driven from Taree to visit friends in QLD and shortly afterwards one woman, in her forties, complains of being unwell and then also becomes ‘sicker than she’s ever been in her life’.
25 Jan 2020 – First reported case of COVID-19 in Australia – man returning to Victoria from Wuhan. (Source: Wikipedia)
18 Dec 2019 - Leaves Sydney for Hong Kong to see her father. (She’s an unaccompanied minor, but she has made many international flights since infancy and lived in HK for eight years.)
23 Dec 2019 - Visit with father to Disneyland, Hong Kong. Disneyland is a major attraction for tourists from mainland China, many of whom travel via the transport hub at Wuhan. It is winter, people are coughing, standing in queues at Disneyland and gripping the rails and handles on all the rides.
26 Dec 2019 - Father sick.
27 Dec 2019 - ‘dad sick again so can’t do anything again today, he has a really high temperature and rlly sick so we didn’t do anything yesterday we just stayed home and he slept and I watched tv but he still sick today’
29 Dec 2019 - ‘maybe change my flight and stay in hong kong because dad's been sick and he’s only getting better now’
30 Dec 2019 – Li Wenliang warns his colleagues at Wuhan Central Hospital about possible outbreak of an illness resembling SARS (Source: Wikipedia)
31 Dec 2019 – Granddaughter getting sick? (very irritable in text exchanges with her mother)
31 Dec 2019 - Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified. (Source: WHO website)
2 Jan 2020 - Father out and about again but still unwell
3 Jan 2020 – The following was written on plane back to Sydney, so my granddaughter could tell her mother when she got home. She doesn’t ask the flight crew for help, or ask for a supply of tissues! Rediscovered in her notes on 28 April 2020 (with a few commas added by me to aid the reader):
so snotty!!!! whole jumper drenched, whole flight nose was leaking
short of breath, hard to breathe (feels like no oxygen, and shorter faster breaths) head feeling a bit warm all around with a headache mainly at front of head
random sneezing attacks – sneezing like 10 times in one minute, happened about 5 times on the flight, everyone a little pissed off
really tired, not like tired because of sleep but just really not there and can barely walk to bathroom because i feel so tired
sore throat and flemmy, not aching, just like coarse and dry but not dry because covered in flem and yucky snot
nose and sore throat/chest main issue, nose dripping while i write this!!'
 |
| At Sydney Airport, 3 Jan 2020 |
Returns home and sleeps for 24 hours. How many people did my granddaughter infect with her ‘bug’ on this flight and at Sydney airport? She said later that her Dad was much sicker than she ever was.
4 Jan 2020 - On social media WHO reports a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province. (Source: WHO website)’
4-9 Jan 2020 – In following days, granddaughter too sick to go to rowing training. One of her three brothers becomes noticeably unwell, while her mother and two other brothers feeling very tired. One brother sleeps for days.
10 -12 Jan 2020 – whole family at Rowing NSW Summer Regatta at Taree. A few days later my granddaughter’s rowing coach (fifty-plus) becomes ‘sicker than she’s ever been in her life’. Another girl who rowed with my granddaughter is also very sick.
12 Jan 2020 - China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19. (Source: WHO website)
13 Jan 2020 - Officials confirm a case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China. (Source: WHO website)
16 Jan 2020 – My daughter and her four children have driven from Taree to visit friends in QLD and shortly afterwards one woman, in her forties, complains of being unwell and then also becomes ‘sicker than she’s ever been in her life’.
25 Jan 2020 – First reported case of COVID-19 in Australia – man returning to Victoria from Wuhan. (Source: Wikipedia)
Whoa! Hope all are better now
ReplyDeleteYes, all's well, it was a long time ago but we don't get enough on the child angle and I thought it was worth documenting.
ReplyDeleteVery good to have this record. Well done. Amazing to see this was 3 weeks earlier than first Aust recorded case. A long time in hindsight for it to be circulating. Not sure who should have the benefit of your documentation. Have any been tested for antibodies left over. And hope you didn't have any contact. It does inform the school debate better than anything else I have read.
DeleteThanks. I thought it was important to document this and I alerted Dr Norman Swan in a Tweet about a week ago. No response.
DeleteNo testing has been done on anyone in the family - we only just discovered my granddaughter's notes and so far much doubt has been thrown at the reliability of antibody tests.
Luckily I've had no physical contact with my family in Sydney this year. They were away through the summer school hols and I was scheduled to spend April with them but the lockdown intervened.
Good read. I'm glad they are better now.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lilian. Once there's a reliable antibodies test it will be interesting to see the results for my granddaughter.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAmazing. Even if it wasn’t COVID19 and a case of really bad flu it makes a strong case for having the flu vaccine and yet some of those stupid NRL players are refusing to have the jab thus putting others at risk. Glad you are well as are we and we have had our flu shots. Stay safe,
ReplyDeleteThanks Robyn. I agree there's a fair bit of stupidity around at present - but lots of sensible people too. Like you, I've had my flu shot, administered through the driver's window as we sat in our cars in the GP's car park!
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