It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the virus has already been with us since the new year. There's so much varying information out there but it does seem that people can carry the virus for days (five was the last report i heard) without showing any symptoms ,indeed may possibly never show any symptoms. A time line in the papers over the weekend said the Chinese raised the alarm on new years eve about a significant rise in cases of pneumonia, but flights wern't stopped till around the 21st jan . That's a massive window of opportunity for the virus to have been brought back here, particularly in the period just after Christmas to new year as no one was being tested at all then.
Here in south Lincs there was a particularly nasty flu type bug that spread like wildfire in January which incidentally started with a cough and a fever. My wife has astma and i dont mind telling you it was frightening , she was struggling. I spoke to a chap today in his fifties who was one of many who caught it at the same time and he has problems with his immune system and ended up hospitalized. It took the whole month to get rid of the cough and some i've spoken to even longer. Whilst flu is obviously very similar, the having the cough first is unusual, its back to front, it usually ends with a cough, well with me it does anyway. They reckon we've had around 600 deaths since the new year which have been put down to seasonal flu, but again, none of these were specifically tested for corona virus.
I may be wrong but other people round here are also starting to wonder if we've already had it, or maybe wishful thinking and we've still got it to look forward to. It was clearly very contagious so presume Lincoln and other areas had it too?