Mushroom
Gold Member
I am glad you yourself are not blaming China for intentionally releasing or spreading Covid-19, but of course some people are doing exactly that. By the way, I have also read reports that the virus may have been circulating for months before the Wuhan outbreak, but have never seen any reports or evidence showing the Chinese government knew of its existence before December. If you have any links or evidence of this, I would be grateful if you share them. I recall reading that the virus may have actually spread earlier even in Europe or the U.S. without being noticed, but unfortunately I didn’t save the links, or try to track down the source when I read those “reports.”
I leave nonsense like that to the Conspiracy Theorists. They are all nutcases anyways, and should be ignored.
But one thing should be clear if anybody has watched how China responded to any outbreak in their country in the last 20+ years. They try to deny it as long as possible, and only talk to the world about it when they no longer have a choice. Bird Flu, SARS, it is the same thing over and over again.
I blame them for this, for trying so damned hard to pretend they are a paradise that they refuse to admit when there is a problem. Even if it is not of their own doing at all. But seen from their viewpoint, admitting that they can not handle a disease is akin to admitting they are not perfect and may need help from others.
But the evidence? It is all over, and not hard to find.
The research is based on satellite imagery of traffic movements around hospitals in Wuhan and the tracking of online searches for specific medical symptoms.
It says there was a noticeable rise in vehicles parking outside six hospitals in the city from late August to 1 December 2019.
This coincided, says the Harvard report, with an increase in searches for possible coronavirus symptoms such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".
Coronavirus: Fact-checking claims it might have started in August 2019
Does a study suggesting possibility of coronavirus cases in Wuhan much earlier than reported stand up to scrutiny?
www.bbc.com
Now I am aware that this BBC article quickly dismisses it because it is not "peer reviewed", but it is only one step of many.
CNBC is not quite so dismissive.
A geneticist in a completely unrelated study of the genetic blueprint of the virus and how it has mutated places the initial outbreak no later than September.
The coronavirus outbreak could have started as early as mid-September, and the Chinese city of Wuhan may not be where it began, a scientist looking at the origins of the disease has said.
Geneticist Peter Forster, from the U.K.'s University of Cambridge, is leading a research project to understand the historical processes that led to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, they hope to identify the first person who got the virus and served as the source for the initial outbreak. By analyzing networks, they have so far been able to chart the spread of the virus, including the genetic mutations, as it moved from China to Australia, Europe and the rest of the world.
Coronavirus Outbreak May Have Started as Early as September, Scientists Say
The outbreak also may not have started in Wuhan, geneticist Peter Forster said.
www.newsweek.com
The first outbreak of the coronavirus could have happened further south than the central Chinese city of Wuhan as early as September, according to a team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge.
Researchers investigating the virus’ origin analysed a large number of strains from around the world and calculated that the initial outbreak occurred in a window between September 13 and December 7.
“The virus may have mutated into its final ‘human-efficient’ form months ago, but stayed inside a bat or other animal or even human for several months without infecting other individuals,” University of Cambridge geneticist Peter Forster said on Thursday.
“Then, it started infecting and spreading among humans between September 13 and December 7, generating the network we present in [the journal] Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS].”
COVID-19 outbreak may have started in September, say British scientists
Via the South China Morning Post: Coronavirus outbreak may have started in September, say British scientists. Excerpt and then a comment: The first outbreak of the coronavirus could have happened further south than the central Chinese city of Wuhan as...
crofsblogs.typepad.com
The ironic thing is, I have been predicting such an event for over a decade. We have been long overdue for a major pandemic, the last was over a century ago. Our society has lost all ability to handle such an event, and most of the suggestions are silly, bordering on worthless.
But even in the early 2000's, I was telling people this would happen. Even that it would likely start in China (because of the previously mentioned SARS-Bird Flu), India (same), or the Philippines (where ebola has not only made the jump from monkeys to pigs, but pigs to humans). It has not a single thing to do with the countries, simply the fact that each has huge human populations that live adjacent to rainforests that have been shown to be an "incubator" to viral infections.
Myself, I do not give a damn what "some people do". You will always have idiots that insist that everything that happens in the world is the fault of somebody else. Myself, I see them as brain damaged individuals, and pay them no mind. I do blame China for keeping quiet as long as they did, but not for the disease itself.