As a counterpoint, I saw a lot of people supporting the idea (with similar anecdotes) that there was a huge outbreak in California in December before we were even testing for COVID at all. Which was empirically demonstrated to be untrue by the later Seattle Flu Study testing of the viral genome.

That said, it's a whole lot more likely that you're right than the December-California-epidemic folks, just saying that that type of anecdotal evidence is fairly easy to come by in the winter.

Also from bk. I'll anecdotally second this sentiment. I even got sick with a terrible cough for 2 weeks in the end of February and lost my sense of smell for 2-3 days. My roommate didn't get sick, but I just spoke to my neighbors and they mentioned similar symptoms the week after me.

Do you think this happened in early February? If so, I agree. Sort of.

The problem is that according to the data, none of us that had the "weird cold" in February ever went to the hospital and tested positive for COVID-19. So it was probably something else, but it is weird that there was a widespread "weird cold" in New York right before the COVID-19 cases, isn't it?