Thank you so much for posting this. I was in Boston in early March on a business trip, two days later I began having a sore throat in the afternoons/evenings that was gone again every morning. After four or so weeks, it finally disappeared, only to come back strong for two days, where I thought I was finally coming down with something, then it turned mild again, then disappeared. The sore throat went on for at least six weeks, which is easily three times longer than anything I've had before in my life.

I wouldn't have thought it was COVID-19, except for the new studies from Spain regarding skin conditions. I had what I thought were horrible bug bites that appeared one morning. They were very itchy small blisters, and I thought I had bed bugs. I hired an exterminator, but he found nothing at my house. What I had - exactly 14 days after my trip - matches exactly with descriptions of skin rashes written up in the study. I'm 53 years old and the study mentioned this kind of rash was most common in middle-aged patients.

So . . . now I'm convinced I had/have it, and will get an anti-body test when they are available.

That's pretty much my experience in terms of symptoms. I otherwise haven't had any cold symptoms whatsoever in the past five years. I'm waiting on reliable antibody tests to become available.

An acquaintance of mine told me of a friend that had died of viral pneumonia at the end of February, when there were very few cases identified in the west. Strikingly, he reported a loss of taste and smell.

The annoying thing is that I'm now isolating both because I might not have had it and because I might still have it.