Editor

I fully endorse Ellen ap Gwynn’s opinion that Ceredigion saw an outbreak of Covid-19 during January. I too suffered symptoms that I would have assumed, if they’d occurred a couple of months later, to be Covid.

A neighbour and several acquaintances suffered similarly, and I particularly recall a conversation I had in late February with a shopkeeper in Lampeter - when asked how I was, I replied that I was a lot better since getting over whatever dreadful ’flu-like illness I’d had - she simply said, ’Ah, you and everyone else in Lampeter!’

Since then, I’ve met at least a dozen local people who also believe they had the virus in January. I’ve also heard corroborative anecdotes concerning the unprecedented number of pupils and staff absent from Lampeter schools through the same illness at the same time, and about the possibility of some of the Chinese students in Lampeter having travelled from Wuhan during December or January.

I cannot understand the pronouncement by Wales’ Chief Medical Officer that it is ’extremely unlikely that coronavirus was in Ceredigion before it was in Wuhan’, when he must know that Covid-19 was first identified in Wuhan in December, but that the first cases have been traced back to 17 November.

If we did indeed have the virus here in January then the possible partial ’herd immunity’ acquired then may be partly responsible for the notably low infection rates we’ve experienced since the virus became more widely known and responded to in March.

Ben Lake is quite right to call for an investigation of the increased death rates in the county during the winter, and the possible role of Covid must be included in the investigation.

Chris Skilbeck

Cribyn