A number of singers in the Yorkshire-based groups began falling ill with Covid-like symptoms in early January – nearly two months before the first UK case.

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Among the first to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan in late December and later developed a cough.

Jane Hall, of Bradford, West Yorkshire, was another who fell ill. She is a member of the Voices of Yorkshire choir, based in West and North Yorkshire, and the All Together Now Community Choir, based in Baildon, West Yorkshire, both of which have had members struck down with illness.

Jane said: “My friend from the choir became ill mid-January. Then my best friend became ill and then I became ill in the first weekend of February.

"I had a throat that felt like I had swallowed broken glass, a high temperature, headaches. I was totally fatigued – I slept for two whole days which was totally unlike me. I had a high temperature and a dry unproductive cough.

"It was like breathing through treacle – I was really struggling to breathe and it felt like there was a lot of gunk I was trying to breathe through."

Chris Kemp, who runs the All Together Now Community Choir, was among the first to get ill, on December 27.

He said he didn't feel properly better until early February.

Another singer who fell ill, Suzanne Smith, said people were suffering before there was widespread knowledge about the virus and its symptoms.

She said : “We didn't really know about Covid. I work in a doctor's surgery but this was before it was widely talked about. I think it could have been what we had. It is intriguing."

The first officially recorded UK cases were on January 29, when two Chinese nationals fell ill at the Staycity Aparthotel in York.

The earliest documented incidence of domestic transmission in the UK – a Brit falling ill who had not been abroad – was on February 28.

Prof John Wright, an epidemiologist who is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, is looking into the cases.

He said: “On most occasions when people contact me to say they had an illness like this last year, I reassure them that it was probably a different viral infection.

“But this, with the link to Wuhan in mid-December, is very interesting.

“We have to be cautious about assuming that this is Covid-19 – there will have been lots of other seasonal viral illnesses circulating – but what interests me in this case is the pattern of transmission, the timeframe and what's been described about the initial link to what we think was happening in Wuhan.

“In all epidemics, when you start tracking back, you find that there were cases much earlier than expected. The nature of epidemics is they do start very, very slowly – one or two people, gradually increasing – and before it hits people's radar it's been lurking just below it for some time.

“So I'm sure there will be cases where people have travelled to Wuhan, who have been exposed to the virus before it was officially announced by the Chinese government, and who have come back and had symptoms or have been infected but asymptomatic.

“The test for Covid-19 we have at present only tells us whether someone is infected at the time the test is carried out. We haven't yet, in the NHS, got a reliable test that reveals whether someone had it in the past.

“When we do, it will be very interesting to see Jane and her choral friends had a normal winter virus – or were among the first in the UK to experience the Covid-19 pandemic.”

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