Coronavirus may have spread in Wuhan in August, Harvard research shows, but China dismissive

[snoop1130]

Coronavirus may have spread in Wuhan in August, Harvard research shows, but China dismissive

 

FILE PHOTO: A computer image created by Nexu Science Communication together with Trinity College in Dublin, shows a model structurally representative of a betacoronavirus which is the type of virus linked to COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus linked to the Wuhan outbreak, shared with Reuters on February 18, 2020. NEXU Science Communication/via REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous".

 

The research used satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan - where the disease was first identified in late 2019 - and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as "cough" and "diarrhoea".

 

"Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019," according to the research.

 

"While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market (in Wuhan)."

 

The research can be viewed: https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42669767

 

"These findings also corroborate the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally in southern China and was potentially already circulating at the time of the Wuhan cluster," according to the research.

 

It showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.

 

"In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhoea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data," according to the research.

 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, asked about the research at a daily press briefing on Tuesday, dismissed the findings.

 

"I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume," she said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-06-09

 

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[YetAnother]

2 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

but China dismissed the report as "ridiculous".

there are facts and there are chinese government facts; not same

[candide]

Another interesting contribution to the 'mystery of the origin of Covid-19' topic.

[ukrules]

Whenever it started to spread in Wuhan, it would have been in Bangkok within weeks.

[Traubert]

41 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

there are facts and there are chinese government facts; not same

 So you think this is quality research?

[daveAustin]

6 hours ago, ukrules said:

Whenever it started to spread in Wuhan, it would have been in Bangkok within weeks.

Yep (significant incidents of viral pneumonia/strange sickness in Thailand late last year), and if all countries were transparent/could show historical corona deaths and laid their cards on the table the actual death rates would be eye-opening. Leading the way of course is China by a HUGE margin. Thailand's successful campaign, which is an after the fact, would be interesting.

[Geoffggi]

13 hours ago, ukrules said:

Whenever it started to spread in Wuhan, it would have been in Bangkok within weeks.

Not forgetting that many tourists from other countries could also have been infected in Thailand and taken it back home prior to symptoms showing..!!

[Bender Rodriguez]

face loss, not going to happen

[sukhumvitneon]

Pop quiz:

 

When the CCP talks, it ________

[stevenl]

What happened to the car parks in September and further?

[Pedrogaz]

There are (or were) 5 direct flights a day from Wuhan to Thailand......if this were true then Thailand would have a major, major problem with coronavirus as about 6 million Chinese tourists would have traipsed through the country. To me sounds like the US trying to get everyone against China again.

[stephenterry]

While I respect Harvard's medical school's opinion, I agree it does sound like their motivation for publishing this study is in response to a political intervention request from above. 

 

What could be factual is that the Corona virus in its early transmission to humans was weak and easily treatable, until it had enough victims to morph into a more deadly strain that is the current Covid 19.

[peleid]

50 minutes ago, Pedrogaz said:

There are (or were) 5 direct flights a day from Wuhan to Thailand......if this were true then Thailand would have a major, major problem with coronavirus as about 6 million Chinese tourists would have traipsed through the country. To me sounds like the US trying to get everyone against China again.

There was some strange virus going around the city I live in Thailand late last year/new year, my foreign friends had it (including myself) hung around for a longtime (which included breathing difficulty)

Edited June 10, 2020 by peleid
Punctuality

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, Pedrogaz said:

There are (or were) 5 direct flights a day from Wuhan to Thailand......if this were true then Thailand would have a major, major problem with coronavirus as about 6 million Chinese tourists would have traipsed through the country. To me sounds like the US trying to get everyone against China again.

The extent of Thailand's Covid 19 cases and deaths is not known. By anyone.

 

Because Thailand has not tested in significant numbers its current figures are simply wrong. Both for cases and deaths.

[Eric Loh]

21 minutes ago, peleid said:

There was some strange virus going around the city I live in Thailand late last year/new year, my foreign friends had it (including myself) hung around for a longtime (which included breathing difficulty)

More likely to be dengue fever. Breathlessness common with dengue as it cause acute respiratory distress. Thailand had a spell of dengue epidemic recently.   

[Proboscis]

16 hours ago, Traubert said:

 So you think this is quality research?

I think that the research, which is quality, tells us that many more people were visiting hospitals during that time compared to the same month in previous years. The size of the population had not changed. So there must be some reason for such a difference in numbers. It would indicate an outbreak of some sort. Given that Coronavirus was the only outbreak around that time, that is highly likely to be the answer.

 

 

[stevenl]

2 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

I think that the research, which is quality, tells us that many more people were visiting hospitals during that time compared to the same month in previous years. The size of the population had not changed. So there must be some reason for such a difference in numbers. It would indicate an outbreak of some sort. Given that Coronavirus was the only outbreak around that time, that is highly likely to be the answer.

 

 

It could indicate an outbreak, not 'would'.

 

But if there was an outbreak in August there would still be issues in September and later. What happened to parking in those months?

[snowgard]

Wow!!!! What will be the next US propaganda lie?

 

I don't know why the United States keeps lying to the world and blaming other countries instead of looking for the mistakes in their own country. If most countries had believed in China in February instead of listening to the desk virus experts' <deleted> (CDC, WHO, ...), it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

But who wants to listen to the Chinese?

[Russell17au]

There is one bit of information that the American government and Harvard have failed to state and that is about the American set up and funded lab in Wuhan. When will America come out and tell the truth? A few facts gentlemen. In 2014 under the Obama administration the American National Institute of Health set up a lab in Wuhan, China to research the coronavirus after the SARS and MERS virus infections. This lab was fully funded by the American government and was run by a company called Ecohealth Alliances of New York and the lab was managed by Dr Peter Daszak. In 2019 the Trump administration slashed all funding to all the Obama health projects including this lab in China thus placing the safety and security at risk. Both Trump and Pompeo have publicly stated that this virus started in a lab and that they have proof of it but they have both failed to take it further because it was an American lab. My claim is supported by the National Institute of Health Projects website which is listed below, which shows the names of the doctors and scientists that worked on the various research since 2014. 

https://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_details.cfm?aid=8674931&icde=49588715

[Logosone]

11 minutes ago, snowgard said:

Wow!!!! What will be the next US propaganda lie?

 

I don't know why the United States keeps lying to the world and blaming other countries instead of looking for the mistakes in their own country. If most countries had believed in China in February instead of listening to the desk virus experts' <deleted> (CDC, WHO, ...), it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

But who wants to listen to the Chinese?

Absolutely, western governments failed across the board. Had they stopped flights in February all of this would have been prevented.

 

Of course had China locked down Wuhan before 5 million left the city and prevented the spread of virus out of China then hundreds of lives would have been saved even earlier.

[stevenl]

3 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

<snip>

Both Trump and Pompeo have publicly stated that this virus started in a lab and that they have proof of it but they have both failed to take it further because it was an American lab. 

<Snip>

Any source for this 'they have failed to take it further because it was an American lab'?

[Russell17au]

6 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Absolutely, western governments failed across the board. Had they stopped flights in February all of this would have been prevented.

 

Of course had China locked down Wuhan before 5 million left the city and prevented the spread of virus out of China then hundreds of lives would have been saved even earlier.

The problem with your time frame of February is that the Australia minister of health Greg Hunt has admitted to a Senate inquiry that he received notification from the WHO on the 1st of January but took no action for 3 weeks. I believe that all countries would have received the same notification at the same time. So why did they not take action in the start of January? 

[Russell17au]

4 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Any source for this 'they have failed to take it further because it was an American lab'?

They have not publicly stated that it was an American lab or everyone would be up in arms against America and not blaming China

 

[JCauto]

So I looked at the satellite imagery part of this study - it relied on 111 observations over a 15-month period using VHR (very high resolution) imagery. They don't have a year-on-year comparison to make, and they didn't take advantage of existing and CHEAPER technology that would have enabled them to observe daily for the last 3 years that could potentially have provided data they could properly assess.

I would not have published this and this leads me to believe they were probably either trying to rush something out the door to get credit while the issue was "hot" or they're accepting shoddy work at Ivy League schools these days. Perhaps there was political pressure too? Who knows.

[ChouDoufu]

49 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

I think that the research, which is quality, tells us that many more people were visiting hospitals during that time compared to the same month in previous years. The size of the population had not changed. So there must be some reason for such a difference in numbers. It would indicate an outbreak of some sort. Given that Coronavirus was the only outbreak around that time, that is highly likely to be the answer.

 

 

this is not "quality" research, at least not yet.  let's wait to see if it ever gets through the peer-review process.

 

so far we have a case of correlation, based on anecdotes.  more cars in hospital car parks around the same time there were online searches for diarrhea.  open and shut, not.

 

did they request info from the hospitals? 

did they search car parks in other cities?

were the hospitals in the city running a special promotion that week?

did wuhan get a batch of bad baby formula?

was there an extended power outage the week prior?

did they check on urn deliveries to mortuaries?

how many cell phone subscribers were lost?

[snowgard]

The reality showed us that all the DESK-VIRUS-EXPERTS worldwide, who  never was involved in a pandemie, include WHO & CDC Experts, who had experience from other virus outbreaks, are complete idiots that they talked the virus harmless.

I really want to know what they thoughed when they saw that china closed the country and everyone must used a mask. 

 

Should such experts be trusted?

Edited June 10, 2020 by snowgard

[ChouDoufu]

45 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

There is one bit of information that the American government and Harvard have failed to state and that is about the American set up and funded lab in Wuhan. When will America come out and tell the truth? A few facts gentlemen. In 2014 under the Obama administration the American National Institute of Health set up a lab in Wuhan, China to research the coronavirus after the SARS and MERS virus infections. This lab was fully funded by the American government and was run by a company called Ecohealth Alliances of New York and the lab was managed by Dr Peter Daszak. In 2019 the Trump administration slashed all funding to all the Obama health projects including this lab in China thus placing the safety and security at risk. Both Trump and Pompeo have publicly stated that this virus started in a lab and that they have proof of it but they have both failed to take it further because it was an American lab. My claim is supported by the National Institute of Health Projects website which is listed below, which shows the names of the doctors and scientists that worked on the various research since 2014. 

https://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_details.cfm?aid=8674931&icde=49588715

 

i certainly hope you can provide evidence of the "fact" that the lab was "fully funded" by the us government.  i've read that funding provided was for safety training, upgrades, and collaborative research.

 

and some evidence for those other "facts," that it was an american lab, run by an american company, with an american director.

 

but i am sure you cannot.  just as i'm sure trump and pompeo are unable to provide evidence of what they claimed as "facts" only to walk them back (or conveniently forget about them) when asked later.

[candide]

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

It could indicate an outbreak, not 'would'.

 

But if there was an outbreak in August there would still be issues in September and later. What happened to parking in those months?

You need to look at figure 2 at the end of the linked research article in order to know that. 

[Logosone]

11 minutes ago, ChouDoufu said:

 

i certainly hope you can provide evidence of the "fact" that the lab was "fully funded" by the us government.  i've read that funding provided was for safety training, upgrades, and collaborative research.

 

and some evidence for those other "facts," that it was an american lab, run by an american company, with an american director.

 

but i am sure you cannot.  just as i'm sure trump and pompeo are unable to provide evidence of what they claimed as "facts" only to walk them back (or conveniently forget about them) when asked later.

That's a nonsense of course, he's clueless.

 

The Wuhan lab received 600,000 USD over five years. It's old news.

 

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trump-spreads-distorted-claim-on-wuhan-lab-funding/

 

How this makes it an American lab I would like to know.

 

Yes, the Americans helped fund Batwoman's research, and helped fund research in Wuhan. It was not American lab, clearly.

[Kinnock]

2 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

There are (or were) 5 direct flights a day from Wuhan to Thailand......if this were true then Thailand would have a major, major problem with coronavirus as about 6 million Chinese tourists would have traipsed through the country. To me sounds like the US trying to get everyone against China again.

So that may support the view that Thailand reached herd immunity levels last year, which is why it's not such a big issue now, and why most cases are returnees from overseas.

 

The fatality rate in a country is linked to the standard of healthcare and the proportion of the population who are chronically sick, elderly, obese or heavy smokers, and the case numbers are linked to testing levels.

 

So the high case fatality rates in China, Italy, US, UK is an inherent factor of their demographics and population health, so Thailand could have had an undetected epidemic last year, and all the current controls except those on overseas visitor arrivals may be unnecessary.