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Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Conspiracy Theories & Claims

But several countries have now found Sars-Cov-2 antibodies in blood samples from before the Wuhan outbreak, meaning that the virus was active and spreading in Europe before November 2019, maybe even as early as September 2019 in Italy. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2
I know there will be a lot of denial but it was in the U.S. in 2019, at least by November. I know my brother in law got it in November after spending time with his friend who had just returned from Italy to visit family, just about when Italy started having many cases (maybe not identified yet, but known).
 
I know there will be a lot of denial but it was in the U.S. in 2019, at least by November. I know my brother in law got it in November after spending time with his friend who had just returned from Italy to visit family, just about when Italy started having many cases (maybe not identified yet, but known).
then you have the list of people who had Covid-like symptoms but who never got tested because the tests weren't available yet.
 
then you have the list of people who had Covid-like symptoms but who never got tested because the tests weren't available yet.
What in my reply indicates I have any list? I know of one person and his friend and family who were all sick in November after they got back from Italy.
 
I meant in a general sense not "you" personally.
Ok. I don't understand then. I am sure that there is a long list if anyone ever actually investigated. In Sept. of 2019 I had a virus that took me down for two weeks then it took me another 6 weeks to feel myself but it was not the standard Covid symptoms, there was no test and it wasn't the flu of the year. It might have been covid but we have so many respiratory virus' floating around that aren't influeza or corona how could anyone tell. There are no tests that cover more than one virus at a time unless you want to pay for them at the doctors office and because of my age, my theory is, "it's a virus, what is the doctor going to do until I have pnuemonia from it." I have only had pnuemonia once and it was viral so my mother did not take me to the doctor. (we knew it was viral because other family members had it and went to the doctor).
 
Ok. I don't understand then. I am sure that there is a long list if anyone ever actually investigated. In Sept. of 2019 I had a virus that took me down for two weeks then it took me another 6 weeks to feel myself but it was not the standard Covid symptoms, there was no test and it wasn't the flu of the year. It might have been covid but we have so many respiratory virus' floating around that aren't influeza or corona how could anyone tell. There are no tests that cover more than one virus at a time unless you want to pay for them at the doctors office and because of my age, my theory is, "it's a virus, what is the doctor going to do until I have pnuemonia from it." I have only had pnuemonia once and it was viral so my mother did not take me to the doctor. (we knew it was viral because other family members had it and went to the doctor).
Now I'm getting nervous, because I was with someone yesterday who just returned from a vacation in Poland -
though she says that there were no serious reports of the virus there, some in the hospital, but no wearing of masks required, except at the airport.
 
Now I'm getting nervous, because I was with someone yesterday who just returned from a vacation in Poland -
though she says that there were no serious reports of the virus there, some in the hospital, but no wearing of masks required, except at the airport.
You are going to be alright. The symptoms in the majority of cases are mild and last about 4 days. Most people I know that had BA5 didn't even notice. Please don't worry. :bpals:
 
Now I'm getting nervous, because I was with someone yesterday who just returned from a vacation in Poland -
though she says that there were no serious reports of the virus there, some in the hospital, but no wearing of masks required, except at the airport.
Well, it can't be any worse than in the U.S. There is no reason to be nervous. I am in the middle of some remodeling and the plumber had to sit out a week because he had 3 people down with Covid. It is not something you can avoid any more than the flu, except for the precautions that we were all taught as children (or should have been) like washing your hands often, staying away from anyone coughing or sneezing, stay home when you aren't feeling well, wear a mask if you have a cough even if you think it is allergies, etc. Oh, and if a sneeze happens get in the habit of sneezing into your elbow so that you are not spraying people close to you (even if it just allergies that is the polite thing to do).
 
But several countries have now found Sars-Cov-2 antibodies in blood samples from before the Wuhan outbreak, meaning that the virus was active and spreading in Europe before November 2019, maybe even as early as September 2019 in Italy. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2
That article is from 2020

"The WHO said it would contact the paper’s authors “to discuss and arrange for further analyses of available samples and verification of the neutralization results”."

So there's been follow up examination of those result then...?
 
Via BBC News:

Covid origin studies say evidence points to market​

Researchers say there is "compelling evidence" that Wuhan's Huanan seafood and wildlife market was at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In two peer-reviewed studies published on Tuesday they re-examined scientific information from the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the Chinese city.
One of the studies shows that the earliest known cases were clustered around that market.
The other uses genetic information to track the timing of the outbreak.
It suggests there were two variants introduced into humans in November or early December 2019.
Together, the researchers say this evidence paints a picture that Sars-Cov-2 was present in live mammals that were sold at Huanan market in late 2019. They say it was transmitted into people who were working or shopping there in two separate "spillover events", where a human contracted the virus from an animal.

One of the researchers involved, virologist Prof David Robertson from the University of Glasgow, told BBC News that he hoped the studies would "correct the false record that the virus came from a lab".

Full story.
So it’s just a massive coincidence that it’s the same place that has a lab that studies such things that had already been warned about its lack of safety?
 
... So there's been follow up examination of those result then...?

Yes, but ... The re-testing was done by two labs selected by the WHO - an independent Italian lab and Erasmus University in the Netherlands. Both labs were given blood samples from the 2020 study's evidence, anonymized to afford a blind re-test. Both labs confirmed the presence of antibodies suggesting COVID-19 or some closely related variant. There were 3 such antibodies identified in the 2020 study.

The Erasmus University team set a more stringent threshold of certainty requiring that all three had to be detected in a blood sample to conclude the sample indicated a COVID (or close variant) infection. The Italian re-test supported the 2020 results and its team supported the 2020 conclusion that COVID-19 was strongly suggested. The Dutch re-test, with its more stringent threshold, reported the results were inconclusive even though they detected one or two of the 3 relevant antibodies in the same samples in which the 2020 study detected them.

All this was reported a year ago:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...-shows-challenges-probing-origins-2021-07-23/

... and as far as I know the debate continues.
 
If there's been a follow-up review, it didn't result in the original article being updated / revised.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755#
Here's a excerpt from their conclusion(note: this is talking about Italians):
Therefore, the specificity of the assays used in the present study strongly supports our seroprevalence findings in a relevant number of asymptomatic individuals well before the overt pandemic period, with positive patients in September–October 2019.

Our results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 circulated in Italy earlier than the first official COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in Lombardy, even long before the first official reports from the Chinese authorities, casting new light on the onset and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.[
Which if true... means that this new paper cited here:
Via BBC News:

Covid origin studies say evidence points to market​

Researchers say there is "compelling evidence" that Wuhan's Huanan seafood and wildlife market was at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In two peer-reviewed studies published on Tuesday they re-examined scientific information from the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the Chinese city.
One of the studies shows that the earliest known cases were clustered around that market.
The other uses genetic information to track the timing of the outbreak.
It suggests there were two variants introduced into humans in November or early December 2019.
Together, the researchers say this evidence paints a picture that Sars-Cov-2 was present in live mammals that were sold at Huanan market in late 2019. They say it was transmitted into people who were working or shopping there in two separate "spillover events", where a human contracted the virus from an animal.

One of the researchers involved, virologist Prof David Robertson from the University of Glasgow, told BBC News that he hoped the studies would "correct the false record that the virus came from a lab".

Full story.
Is complete garbage. Since a core aspect of it is the idea that the DATE the pandemic started matches when the outbreak at that market happened. If it was earlier than that by months? Not possible at all. Especially if this is true:
A second study by Harvard University showed a relevant increase of hospital traffic in the Wuhan region, evaluated by satellite imagery, and COVID-19 symptoms–related queries in search engines, since autumn 2019.11 These findings suggest that the virus may have already been circulating at the time of the outbreak in several countries.
See: https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42669767
This suggests there was already a Covid-19 epidemic in China BEFORE the market incident supposedly took place.
 
Relative of mine works in a shop in York where every single staff member went down with a strange "flu" - in January 2020. (And before the reported "first case in the UK" which was also in York). Shop attracts a lot of tourists from all over the world. What relative thought was odd at the time was that most of their colleagues were middle aged so would be expected to have been exposed to the flu - so some would be immune, possible. Yet every last person went down with the mystery illness. They said at the time, I remember, it was almost as if they were all picked off, one by one.

They were very ill indeed and one intriguing symptom was - relative's toes turned black. Classic wild variant covid. I visited them during this illness when they were laying on the sofa with a fever. I didn't catch it (then). Of course we now know it was much less infective than later variants...

Relative said to me when this illness was over they thought it had left them with pneumonia. They didn't get back to normal for many months, getting tired and out of breath if trying to exercise (and they were a fitness bunny).

I guess it's entirely possible the first UK patients, who just happened to be a Chinese student and their parent, IIRC, caught it in a shop - in York. They were in a hotel a five minute walk from the same supermarket relative and I shopped in every week that month.
 
Some have claimed they had Covid at the World Military Games in October 2019:

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1094347/world-military-games-illness-covid-19

"More athletes have revealed that they fell ill during the Military World Games in October [2019] when the Chinese city of Wuhan hosted the event.

Two months before the first identification of COVID-19 by China."

So whether is was some butter-fingered minion at a Wuhan lab, obscenely cruel practices at a Wuhan "wet market" or the World Military Games, hosted by Wuhan, you don't need to be much of a Sherlock to spot the common denominator there.
 
So whether is was some butter-fingered minion at a Wuhan lab, obscenely cruel practices at a Wuhan "wet market" or the World Military Games, hosted by Wuhan, you don't need to be much of a Sherlock to spot the common denominator there.
C-H-I-N-A.
 
Relative of mine works in a shop in York where every single staff member went down with a strange "flu" - in January 2020. (And before the reported "first case in the UK" which was also in York). Shop attracts a lot of tourists from all over the world. What relative thought was odd at the time was that most of their colleagues were middle aged so would be expected to have been exposed to the flu - so some would be immune, possible. Yet every last person went down with the mystery illness. They said at the time, I remember, it was almost as if they were all picked off, one by one.

They were very ill indeed and one intriguing symptom was - relative's toes turned black. Classic wild variant covid. I visited them during this illness when they were laying on the sofa with a fever. I didn't catch it (then). Of course we now know it was much less infective than later variants...

Relative said to me when this illness was over they thought it had left them with pneumonia. They didn't get back to normal for many months, getting tired and out of breath if trying to exercise (and they were a fitness bunny).

I guess it's entirely possible the first UK patients, who just happened to be a Chinese student and their parent, IIRC, caught it in a shop - in York. They were in a hotel a five minute walk from the same supermarket relative and I shopped in every week that month.

January 2020 is when I caught it. I was so sick. The pharmacist across the street was adamant that the first case in Canada was not reported until March 2020. He asked me if I had been to China recently. I said no but I have been to Walmart and everything there comes from China. Since then, quite a few people in Canada have reported being sick in December 2019/January 2020.
 
January 2020 is when I caught it. I was so sick. The pharmacist across the street was adamant that the first case in Canada was not reported until March 2020. He asked me if I had been to China recently. I said no but I have been to Walmart and everything there comes from China. Since then, quite a few people in Canada have reported being sick in December 2019/January 2020.
Key words "not reported", that doesn't mean it was in Canada, or Italy, or the U.S. or the UK.
 
January 2020 is when I caught it. I was so sick. The pharmacist across the street was adamant that the first case in Canada was not reported until March 2020. He asked me if I had been to China recently. I said no but I have been to Walmart and everything there comes from China. Since then, quite a few people in Canada have reported being sick in December 2019/January 2020.
You brought up an interesting point -
All these shipments from China, I've wondered about that.
My doctor told me something that I have never forgotten - most diseases which are, for instance, contaminating a surface, have a short life.
However, the more serious ones such as Hepatitis, last for some time and infected surfaces can possibly spread them.
 
mm... thing is.. you're putting an impossible requirement. Testing didn't exist at the time, so the only way to ascertain possibility of infection is observation of symptoms.
Yes, I am, but I think people need to understand that at least in the U.S. reporting was slow and seems to have been delayed purposely as lots of people were sick late in 2019 with symptoms that matched Covid, but the "story" is that the first cases didn't show up until 2020. My brother in law's doctor had him come for a titor test in 2020 because she was sure that he had Covid19 in November. She had other cases in 2019 besides him. AND a lot of people do not bother going to a doctor for a virus unless or until it becomes catastrophic (I am one of those) so no one really knows when the virus actually started or where. As far as I am concerned Wuhan is a story to make us angry at the Chinese and even though I don't believe it escaped from a lab or was intentionally set upon us, I don't think we will ever know where patient 0 actually was.
 
You brought up an interesting point -
All these shipments from China, I've wondered about that.
My doctor told me something that I have never forgotten - most diseases which are, for instance, contaminating a surface, have a short life.
However, the more serious ones such as Hepatitis, last for some time and infected surfaces can possibly spread them.

Unless your Chinese-made goods are flown directly from China and placed on the store's shelves in under 3 days, you are safe. You are correct about the Hep C - which is definitely a concern.

Surface survival​

Numerous researchers have studied how long SARS-CoV-2 can survive on a variety of porous and non-porous surfaces 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. On porous surfaces, studies report inability to detect viable virus within minutes to hours; on non-porous surfaces, viable virus can be detected for days to weeks. The apparent, relatively faster inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 on porous compared with non-porous surfaces might be attributable to capillary action within pores and faster aerosol droplet evaporation 16.

Data from surface survival studies indicate that a 99% reduction in infectious SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses can be expected under typical indoor environmental conditions within 3 days (72 hours) on common non-porous surfaces like stainless steel, plastic, and glass 10, 11, 12, 13, 15. However, experimental conditions on both porous and non-porous surfaces do not necessarily reflect real-world conditions, such as initial virus amount (e.g., viral load in respiratory droplets) and factors that can remove or degrade the virus, such as ventilation and changing environmental conditions 8, 9. They also do not account for inefficiencies in transfer of the virus between surfaces to hands and from hands to mouth, nose, and eyes 8, 9. In fact, laboratory studies try to optimize the recovery of viruses from surfaces (e.g., purposefully swabbing the surface multiple times or soaking the contaminated surface in viral transport medium before swabbing). When accounting for both surface survival data and real-world transmission factors, the risk of fomite transmission after a person with COVID-19 has been in an indoor space is minor after 3 days (72 hours), regardless of when it was last cleaned 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201... surface survival studies,plastic, and glass .
 
Unless your Chinese-made goods are flown directly from China and placed on the store's shelves in under 3 days, you are safe. You are correct about the Hep C - which is definitely a concern.

Surface survival​

Numerous researchers have studied how long SARS-CoV-2 can survive on a variety of porous and non-porous surfaces 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. On porous surfaces, studies report inability to detect viable virus within minutes to hours; on non-porous surfaces, viable virus can be detected for days to weeks. The apparent, relatively faster inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 on porous compared with non-porous surfaces might be attributable to capillary action within pores and faster aerosol droplet evaporation 16.

Data from surface survival studies indicate that a 99% reduction in infectious SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses can be expected under typical indoor environmental conditions within 3 days (72 hours) on common non-porous surfaces like stainless steel, plastic, and glass 10, 11, 12, 13, 15. However, experimental conditions on both porous and non-porous surfaces do not necessarily reflect real-world conditions, such as initial virus amount (e.g., viral load in respiratory droplets) and factors that can remove or degrade the virus, such as ventilation and changing environmental conditions 8, 9. They also do not account for inefficiencies in transfer of the virus between surfaces to hands and from hands to mouth, nose, and eyes 8, 9. In fact, laboratory studies try to optimize the recovery of viruses from surfaces (e.g., purposefully swabbing the surface multiple times or soaking the contaminated surface in viral transport medium before swabbing). When accounting for both surface survival data and real-world transmission factors, the risk of fomite transmission after a person with COVID-19 has been in an indoor space is minor after 3 days (72 hours), regardless of when it was last cleaned 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html#:~:text=Data from surface survival studies,plastic, and glass .
Note however that the various experiments that I have seen assume "room temperature" at upwards of 65 F. One of the characteristics of C19 is that it survives much better at colder temperatures, to the extent that if frozen it appeared to be immortal, (ie - in your freezer). This should be taken into account when dealing with uninsulated garages in the northern part of the country, where surface survival might be pretty long with the exception of surfaces like cloth where the stuff is completely dried out very fast. I wish I could give the source for the immortality info, but I did a lot of reading from professional testing environments early on because the data was so all over the map.
 
Note however that the various experiments that I have seen assume "room temperature" at upwards of 65 F. One of the characteristics of C19 is that it survives much better at colder temperatures, to the extent that if frozen it appeared to be immortal, (ie - in your freezer). This should be taken into account when dealing with uninsulated garages in the northern part of the country, where surface survival might be pretty long with the exception of surfaces like cloth where the stuff is completely dried out very fast. I wish I could give the source for the immortality info, but I did a lot of reading from professional testing environments early on because the data was so all over the map.
China did try and claim it came to them on frozen imports.
 

Prof Richard Ennos discusses experiment run to find the cause of an increase in excess deaths​

The video is exactly 5 minutes long.

 
Unless your Chinese-made goods are flown directly from China and placed on the store's shelves in under 3 days, you are safe. You are correct about the Hep C - which is definitely a concern.

Surface survival​

Numerous researchers have studied how long SARS-CoV-2 can survive on a variety of porous and non-porous surfaces 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. On porous surfaces, studies report inability to detect viable virus within minutes to hours; on non-porous surfaces, viable virus can be detected for days to weeks. The apparent, relatively faster inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 on porous compared with non-porous surfaces might be attributable to capillary action within pores and faster aerosol droplet evaporation 16.

Data from surface survival studies indicate that a 99% reduction in infectious SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses can be expected under typical indoor environmental conditions within 3 days (72 hours) on common non-porous surfaces like stainless steel, plastic, and glass 10, 11, 12, 13, 15. However, experimental conditions on both porous and non-porous surfaces do not necessarily reflect real-world conditions, such as initial virus amount (e.g., viral load in respiratory droplets) and factors that can remove or degrade the virus, such as ventilation and changing environmental conditions 8, 9. They also do not account for inefficiencies in transfer of the virus between surfaces to hands and from hands to mouth, nose, and eyes 8, 9. In fact, laboratory studies try to optimize the recovery of viruses from surfaces (e.g., purposefully swabbing the surface multiple times or soaking the contaminated surface in viral transport medium before swabbing). When accounting for both surface survival data and real-world transmission factors, the risk of fomite transmission after a person with COVID-19 has been in an indoor space is minor after 3 days (72 hours), regardless of when it was last cleaned 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html#:~:text=Data from surface survival studies,plastic, and glass .
What isn't being said is that is exactly the same for many other coronaviruses that have been around and mutating for years. Those also kill people as well except it doesn't or didn't get plastered and broadcast all over the papers and media. It was just accepted as a part of life. It's also the same for many other common cold and influenza viruses. Most surfaces are covered in bacteria as well. For instance, when a door is opened say into a shop, how many other people have touched that door?

During the worst of the pandemic the death rate hardly increased at all. Spend some time, do your own research and go on the Office for National Statistics and check it all out.

What I find odd is that all the people I know who have covid 19 now, or recently, are all vaccinated. My neighbour who lives in the flat below mine has covid yet again and has tested positive. This is the 3rd or 4th time he's had it. He, last week out of genuine concern, yet again, has put a note through everyones door on his floor and the one above and below. (I live in a tower block). He wrote he's feeling bad, sore throat, temperature, etc, but thank god he's had the vaccine three times or it could be a lot worse. So how am I supposed to catch covid from him? Through a 9 inch concrete floor? If he's staying indoors until he tests negative.... He's fallen victim to the fear factor as opposed to the common sense factor.

I'll keep my views to myself although it's obvious what I'm thinking.
 
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What isn't being said is that is exactly the same for many other coronaviruses that have been around and mutating for years. Those also kill people as well except it doesn't or didn't get plastered and broadcast all over the papers and media. It was just accepted as a part of life. It's also the same for many other common cold and influenza viruses. Most surfaces are covered in bacteria as well. For instance, when a door is opened say into a shop, how many other people have touched that door?

During the worst of the pandemic the death rate hardly increased at all. Spend some time, do your own research and go on the Office for National Statistics and check it all out.

What I find odd is that all the people I know who have covid 19 now, or recently, are all vaccinated. My neighbour who lives in the flat below mine has covid yet again and has tested positive. This is the 3rd or 4th time he's had it. He, last week out of genuine concern, yet again, has put a note through everyones door on his floor and the one above and below. (I live in a tower block). He wrote he's feeling bad, sore throat, temperature, etc, but thank god he's had the vaccine three times or it could be a lot worse. So how am I supposed to catch covid from him? Through a 9 inch concrete floor? If he's staying indoors until he tests negative.... He's fallen victim to the fear factor as opposed to the common sense factor.

I'll keep my views to myself although it's obvious what I'm thinking.

Kesavaross - you are in the UK. Could you please post some sources for your claim that the death rate hardly increased at all in your country?

I am in the US, and here it was deadly. I've posted about this on this thread before, but perhaps you did not read it. In any case, take a look at the "Covid disease" thread and the details I posted there - link below. I disagree that covid/SARS is no more deadly than other corona viruses. It was an astonishing killer in 2020-2021 in the US, and from what I gathered from news sources in other countries as well.

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...its-spread-per-se.66968/page-184#post-2168987
 
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