There are tons of stories of weird flu or severe illnesses that popped up in DEC- MAR. If you got something nasty when you usually had run of the mill cold or flu begs the question of whether COVID was here a lot earlier and came in like a Trojan Horse during Flu season.
Now it could just be a weird new strain of FLU that popped up also that further clouds the matter. But no way to go back a year and see what you might have had now that we have testing but interestingly enough you like many were able to fight it off.
Since it takes time for a virus to spread, and if it indeed was here in some minor forms in DEC-JAN, then it must have popped up a few months before in China before it started being carried overseas... Maybe even Sept 2019...
I was ill from ~Dec 27th - later January before I felt entirely clear. I have heard from two cousins, one in England, me in Colombia, several more I believe were sincere from groups. Its pretty documentary investigation worthy I believe, the weird virus, just like Covid before it should have been possible. My father-in-law had it, gave it to me in the car.
I isolated from other people immediately and so did my father-in-law under pain of me kicking his butt. This is because of my hospice volunteering work, I always isolate. Nobody else visiting (over 20 people) caught it from either of us.
Dry nose, powerful headache, leg cramps, loss of smell (just a few days), diarrhea (never had with flu) and lots of it for 2-3 days (took a lot of Entrogermina mind you), wet nose starts but not much, coughing starts, could not catch my breath several times, fever kept surging to 104.5F, kept coming back randomly even after the first week..
To get that lot I would have had to have several tropical diseases in parallel and series and I was tested for all of them plus TB.
I probably should get a PCR but I expect too late.
Now Colombia has a LOT of Chinese road builder firms, otherwise very few living here unlike Panama which has huge numbers of Chinese. It could easily have got here early. Of course by anyone else coming here.
Whatever it was, not the flu, I've had malaria which was only a little more unpleasant (not possible to confuse the two though).