I had a horrible case of "pneumonia" about a week before the official first COViD cases happened in my area. It was before they really had any testing available. Considering I work in the service industry, there's no telling where I actually caught it or if it was actually pneumonia or not. I do know, however, that couple of other friends who I worked with also got really bad respiratory things around the same time as mine, so I don't doubt that COVID was floating around before it was actually a thing.