[HN Gopher] First U.S. Covid deaths came earlier than previously...
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       First U.S. Covid deaths came earlier than previously thought
        
       Author : nradov
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2021-08-23 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.mercurynews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.mercurynews.com)
        
       | entropicdrifter wrote:
       | My mom had a bad case of "bronchitis" in late 2019, had to buy
       | herself a nebulizer. In hindsight it's seeming increasingly
       | likely it was COVID
        
       | ianhawes wrote:
       | I want to share an anecdote that I've told countless times in
       | person.
       | 
       | My 1 year old daughter came down with a bizarre rash on New Years
       | Eve in 2019. We took her to a pediatric urgent care where they
       | diagnosed her with a viral rash (not uncommon, anyone with kids
       | is probably familiar). Some Tylenol did the trick and she was
       | fine.
       | 
       | Two days later we followed up with her doctor, who did a full
       | exam and did not identify anything in particular. The next day,
       | she was acting lethargic and had a slight fever. Nothing we
       | hadn't dealt with before. That night though, things took a turn
       | for the worst. She began vomiting heavily and had a febrile
       | seizure which prompted us to call 911 and they transported her to
       | the ER.
       | 
       | There, her temperature was 103 and they immediately administered
       | medication. A chest x-ray showed she had developed pneumonia in
       | one of her lungs.
       | 
       | The next day when we were finally discharged from the hospital, I
       | realized I too had developed a terrible fever which soon turned
       | into a cough. My daughter had rapidly improved after treatment
       | for the pneumonia, while I was suffering from a terrible cough.
       | Laying in bed, I became delusional with a high fever, sweating
       | through everything I wore, and went to the ER twice over the span
       | of 4 days with shortness of breath. My sense of smell and taste
       | was gone. I had a residual cough for about 2 weeks after.
       | 
       | You're probably thinking, wow, you and your daughter had COVID-19
       | in January of 2020. And you'd most likely be wrong. We both had
       | RSV, confirmed through rapid testing. I was tested later in 2020
       | for the COVID-19 antibodies, and nothing popped up.
       | 
       | Take that into account when people say they had COVID in early
       | 2020.
        
       | mring33621 wrote:
       | Our pediatrician's husband died unexpectedly in Nov. 2019 of an
       | unknown disease with sudden, flu-like symptoms. This was in
       | Chicago. I have no more information as to whether he traveled or
       | anything else.
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | I just looked again at the papers about Pfizer trials, and the
         | severe adverse events after the vaccine were 0.6%. Many would
         | surely call that number non-negligible. Unfortunately for the
         | desire for clarity, the severe adverse events after the placebo
         | were a too close 0.5%.
         | 
         | Yesterday during a normal call with a friend, he mentioned that
         | one acquaintance of his got leukaemia, four weeks after vaccine
         | injection. That leukaemia is real, the relation with the
         | vaccine doubtful.
         | 
         | This whole sars-cov-2 infestation came during a loud noise of
         | other adverse events, many unrelated... The normal loud noise
         | of adverse events.
         | 
         | One may suspect, but cannot point to virus or vaccine for
         | anything that happens.
        
       | hamburgerwah wrote:
       | Anyone paying attention at the time had this information. There
       | is an incredible rewriting of history being attempted. There was
       | a lot of sound evidence that covid started in november or earlier
       | in china and that it leaked from a lab (based on the lockdown and
       | sequestering of lab personnel in december). Any one pointing out
       | those facts in jan/feb/mar was decried as a nut, racist and
       | conspiracy theorist. The earliest random serologic testing in the
       | washington and oregon area plainly showed that covid had been
       | circulating for some time.
       | 
       | Somehow people also seem to like to forget that non-covid SARS
       | leaked out of the beijing bio-lab at least twice resulting in
       | deaths: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096887/
       | 
       | Which they attempted to cover up as well.
        
         | redis_mlc wrote:
         | 1) NTD Media and Sky Australia have about 100 hours of video
         | online documenting early corona (2020). (They simply ignored
         | the wokeists.)
         | 
         | 2) Bay Area hospitals were not busy in 2020, indicating early
         | herd immunity. That's because 100,000 passengers from China
         | arrived weekly in the US, with half in SFO and LAX.
         | 
         | Note that the CCP is again restricting domestic flights because
         | of delta, yet sending flights to the US.
        
         | La1n wrote:
         | >and that it leaked from a lab (based on the lockdown and
         | sequestering of lab personnel in december).
         | 
         | You say "sound evidence" and then name some circumstantial
         | evidence. This is similar types of evidence used for the "Fort
         | Detrick origin" story. It was shut down in August 2019 for
         | safety violations, and the Wuhan military games "could be" how
         | it spread to China.
        
           | j_walter wrote:
           | Despite that fact...the seemingly bought and paid for WHO
           | were still claiming in late January that there was no person
           | to person transmission. That stopped the US from doing any
           | sort of checks of any sort and life went on...all the while
           | the virus was spreading all over the country.
        
             | mikem170 wrote:
             | As far as I know at that time they had no proof of person
             | to person transmission. There are many coronaviruses in the
             | wild, across many animal hosts, some can hop from person to
             | person, some cannot. Many/most medical professionals did
             | they same - stuck to the evidence and refused to
             | hypothesize.
             | 
             | Why do you say the WHO are bought and paid for? Do you have
             | any real evidence of that?
        
               | ngcc_hk wrote:
               | Depends upon what is evidence, what is influence, what is
               | not allow ... and do not hypothesise ! The whole science
               | is based on doing hypotheses. And imagining something not
               | allowed or again st established thinking based on fact on
               | the ground. Who has not. Medical journal has not. It
               | killed us ...
        
               | j_walter wrote:
               | China refused to let the WHO in and do actual
               | investigative work. Instead they took China's word for it
               | and repeated whatever they said as fact. China covered up
               | the spread of the disease and instead tried to hide it.
               | The fact that the WHO doesn't recognize Taiwan (like
               | there is no such place) and refused to act on information
               | they had saying there was problems in Wuhan because China
               | won't let them.
               | 
               | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/trumps
               | -fa...
               | 
               | >That same day, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control
               | said it sent an email to the WHO regarding rumors of at
               | least "seven cases of atypical pneumonia," which it said
               | is code in China for "a disease transmitted between
               | humans caused by coronavirus."
               | 
               | Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, and the WHO says the
               | email never mentioned human-to-human transmission.
               | "Public health professionals could discern from this
               | wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-
               | human transmission of the disease," the Taiwan CDC
               | argues. "However, because at the time there were as yet
               | no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state
               | directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-
               | human transmission."
               | 
               | Apparently, Taiwanese officials had been alerted to Dec.
               | 30 posts in a chat room by a doctor, Li Wenliang, in
               | which he said that seven cases he had been treating
               | resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a
               | deadly form of coronavirus. Li was reprimanded by the
               | Chinese government for illegally spreading rumors. He
               | later died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel
               | coronavirus.
        
               | spfzero wrote:
               | Taiwan actually rounded up tourists from the mainland and
               | sent them back home, then locked down travel for all.
               | They took it seriously from the start, ignored what the
               | WHO and CCP were saying. I don't doubt there were many
               | more reports from Taiwanese on the mainland, over just
               | the posts by Li.
        
           | thatswrong0 wrote:
           | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-
           | theory-...
           | 
           | It's not a conspiracy theory.
        
             | akvadrako wrote:
             | It's likely true but it's still a conspiracy theory because
             | it involves multiple parties conspiring in secret.
        
             | sillycross wrote:
             | I skimmed your article but I don't see any "sound evidence"
             | proposed in the article either.
             | 
             | The line between "conspiracy theory" and "a theoretically
             | possible hypothesis that can neither be proven nor ruled
             | out" is kind of murky for me, but if you are claiming
             | "there are sound evidence that COVID comes from a lab
             | leak", then you cannot support your argument by only citing
             | "space for reasonable doubts" (which is what your article
             | said).
        
         | Urgo wrote:
         | There is a major difference in tracking its origins which
         | pretty much no one disputed was China vs calling it the "China
         | virus" or "Kung Flu". The former is matter of fact and allows
         | for greater discussion of whether it was natural or leaked from
         | a lab. The later can be easily seen and was used towards not
         | only the government of China but also Chinese Americans. Many
         | Asian Americans, including children, were scared for their
         | lives due this.
         | 
         | In short, its not racist to say covid19 originated in China or
         | think a lab leak is a likely possibility that needs a much
         | better investigation or even to think that the Chinese
         | government might be covering it up. It is racist to call it the
         | "China virus" or "Kung Flu" and treat people who had absolutely
         | nothing to do with its origins wrongly.
        
           | xtracto wrote:
           | Is it racist to call the Spanish flu the "Spanish Flu"?
        
             | paulryanrogers wrote:
             | Technically? Either way it's a lazy name since it was
             | traced to the Midwest US.
             | 
             | IMO year based names (like the 1918 pandemic) are better
             | still since even if they emerged sooner the undeniable
             | historical impact is likely within a year or so of its
             | recognition.
        
               | blagie wrote:
               | No. It wasn't. The flu of 1918 was never successfully
               | traced back. There are multiple possible origins (by
               | coincidence, including China).
               | 
               | We'll probably never know.
               | 
               | https://www.history.com/news/china-epicenter-of-1918-flu-
               | pan...
        
             | alisonkisk wrote:
             | Yes, it's just less obvious since it's old.
             | 
             | And "Spanish flu" is called that because the Spanish
             | discovered it, not because it was based in Spain. But most
             | people didn't realize that then or now.
        
               | thepangolino wrote:
               | What about the Ebola virus? Is that racist too? If not,
               | why?
        
       | jleyank wrote:
       | My wife and I travelled to London UK and surrounding areas late
       | 2019 and came back with a viral pneumonia that had various COVID
       | symptoms. No blood samples kept and serology tested showed
       | nothing 6+ months later. There are late 2019 cases suspected in
       | the UK and France in the last quarter of that year, based on
       | saved blood samples.
       | 
       | Lots of tourists from all over the world go there for shopping
       | and the universities and tourism. Big crowds.
        
         | nradov wrote:
         | Antibody tests can be negative in some cases because people
         | don't always produce detectible levels. You might want to get a
         | T-detect test, although it still isn't 100% reliable at
         | identifying past infections.
         | 
         | https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
        
         | rich_sasha wrote:
         | My wife had a nasty viral pneumonia around Dec 2019, was
         | subsequently healthy, and tested positive for antibodies in the
         | summer 2020. Around Jan 2020 my daughter had a strange disease,
         | with blistering in her hands - perhaps "Covid fingers"?
         | 
         | Anecdotes aside,I think it is fairly unambiguous that it was
         | going around by then.
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-23 23:02 UTC)