It’s not clear when Covid-19 first started to spread among humans, but it appears to be earlier than we first thought. I speculated on this in April 2020 when I wrote about a United pilot who reported flying more sick passengers than usual on his China runs, and also that he contracted something that seemed likely with hindsight to have been Covid-19 in mid-January leading him to cancel a trip a week and a half later. He never flew again, retiring February 3. (Much of the comments around this incident concerned this pilot joining the airline during a 29 day strike in 1985.)
There have been reports of unexplained virus cases in China in September and October, the Wuhan airport running a coronavirus containment drill in September, and the Wuhan CDC’s ordering of testing supplies at the same time. Coronavirus and SARS online searches spiked in China around the same time. On May 23 the Wall Street Journal reported on U.S. intelligence which states that 3 Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers were hospitalized in November 2019.
There have been hints at an earlier timeline in the U.S. as well. For instance Red Cross blood samples from December 2019 show evidence of Covid-19 antibodies (though I had placed some probability on these really being antibodies to another coronavirus). However the first reported U.S. Covid-19 deaths were in February.
We now know that there were Covid-19 linked deaths in the U.S. as early as the week of January 5, 2020. That’s contemporaneous with China’s first reported death on January 9, 2020. And there were January deaths now attributed to Covid-19 in California, Georgia, Alabama, Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
Covid-19 testing wasn’t available in the U.S. when these individuals died, however “if health workers took blood at the time, a medical examiner could later test the sample for the virus or antibodies, or do a PCR test for the virus on a tissue sample if an autopsy was performed.” Cases thought to be flu are being revised. These are suggestive of infections in December – or possibly even November 2019 – if these new medical attributions are correct.
The amount of virus spread we believed had taken place in the world as of late January 2020 suggested mathematically that China’s own outbreak was nearly 40 times worse than it had reported. For the virus to have gotten to the U.S. (and presumably elsewhere) even sooner may cause such estimates to be revisited upward.
We (my wife and myself) were in Lisbon Portugal in November 2019, January 2020 and, February 2020. Most of the tourists were Asian, followed by Germans at those times. We noticed a lot of the Asians experiencing the symptons of a cold. We stayed away from them because of health concerns not because of racism or xenophobia. Covid had not been identified at the time (November and January). Sure enough, four weeks later, outbreak in Lisbon.
We were lucky.
@Gary – is this ( https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/42669767/Satellite_Images_Baidu_COVID19_manuscript_DASH.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y ) the data you’re referring to about searches? It also mentions they counted the volume of vehicles in local hospitals with graphics and detailed description of their methodology.
If that’s your source, I think you ought to cite it.
Not that we can prove it, but I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law had Covid in Monroe, MI around Christmas 2019. They wanted to put her on a ventilator, but she wouldn’t agree. Eventually, she was sent to a nursing home for rehab, where her roommate got a respiratory infection and died. That also could have been Covid. But, no one will know for sure.
I think the lack of any real criticism or investigation into the origins of one of the worst global crises in history should pique suspicion with most people. Seriously, how is there not every intelligence officer/government agencies from every country in the world probing this 24 hours a day? Seems the silence should make it pretty obvious that some powerful country or organization massively screwed up and a cover up is needed. The US spent more time and money investigating a phone call by the president.
I’m relatively young and very healthy. I spent a week in Singapore in late Nov 2019, with 5-hour layover in each direction in the Hong Kong airport (mostly in the Cathay Pier First lounge both times). While in Singapore I spent plenty of time in all manner of crowded subways, cabs, markets, restaurants, museums, hotels, and other public places. About 3 days after arriving back in the US, I was in the emergency room for only the second time in my life. I exceptionally weak, lightheaded, dizzy, with cough and congestion; I’ve never felt closer to death and thought it might be congestive heart failure. I lacked even the energy to utter a single word at times.
After a battery of tests, including EKG, chest X-rays, multiple rounds of bloodwork, neurological exam, constant blood pressure monitoring, and a week wearing a heart monitor 24/7, doctors could conjure no idea what the problem was. All tests suggested that I was perfectly healthy, but there is no doubt I had come back from East Asia with some mysterious illness, presumably an as yet unknown virus. (It was not the flu; I had been vaccinated for flu well before the trip, and tests showed no signs of flu.) If that was not Covid, it’s difficult to guess what it might have been. The acute phase passed within a few days, but in the coming months I would have odd unexplained episodes such as sudden weakness, racing heart rate, and other anomalies I’ve never before had in my life. Thankfully, whatever it was appears to have subsided now, as there have been no odd symptoms in nearly a year, but whatever it was plagued me for the better part of a year. Some non-flu illness was circulating in SE Asia in Nov 2019, and the culprit looks more clear as more evidence emerges.
I can assure you that there was something spreading far beyond normal seasonal flu in the fall of 2019. It is absolutely certain that there was a wave of infections well before covid was recognized.
It is beyond comprehension that the US and WHO have been so incredibly docile in getting to the bottom of this – and the only reasonable explanation is that the US was involved in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, only to have people who knew about that funding be tapped for leadership roles in managing covid in the US.
The real issue for the global airline industry is how travelers can safely move around the planet when all participants in public health are not being transparent and honest.
@Allen
So happy to hear that you have recovered.
I find it disgraceful that we were lied to about this virus.
And, I echo Tim Dunn’s comments.
Did Travelers Bring Virus Here In 2019?
YES FROM CHINA
I agree with Tim and Allen (above). The Wuhan virus was spreading like wild fire long before the alarm bells went off. No doubt China knew about it kept their mouths shut to save face.
My wife and I left Wuhan on in late December, 2019. On the flight there from Shanghai she had sat near a man who had a deep cough. After arriving back in Shanghai, she developed a cough herself and commented that she had never had anything like it before – it must be a Chinese cough! (she said). She was sick for several days including vomiting and fainting, and not wanting to get out of bed for a day. She recovered quickly, and I was fine. We returned to the US with no additional events.
My wife and I ate at the bat buffet in Wuhan in November 2019. We sat next to an older Chinese man who coughed up giant gobs of blood and then fell to the floor in convulsions in the restaurant. We stepped over him and continued our meal, thinking nothing of it. But when we got back to the US, my wife’s heart suddenly ruptured and she bled out. A few days later, I developed severe pneumonia and was on a ventilator for six months until I, too, died.
A self-congratulatory piece by Gary…so proud of yourself that you called the covid outbreak!
Followed by all these tin foil hat xenophobic stories about when in 2019 “I got Covid”. I didn’t know a cough had nationalities.
@jamesb2147 – it’s not, I linked to my previous discussion of this with citations, but thank you for this link as well, I will read it.
This seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me. I will spare you all the details of my month long illness that showed up the final night in HKG Dec 2019…..
April 2020, not April 2019
Wrong Steve.
And the question is when Chine get the bill for f$ng the world? I guess never.
We were in Mulu National Park in Borneo in Summer 2019 and spent 4 days in caves with a lot of bats. After that we stayed for another 5 nights in Kota Kinabalu mainly doing snorkeling at the nearby islands. During the last day in Kota Kinabalu I was getting some cold and even good British gin and 12 year old Scotch were not much of a help. We flew to Singapore were I slept for 12 hrs after visiting a sauna. This was quite unusual. Next day we flew SIN-NRT-DFW and I was fine at the time I got to NRT. In Jan 2020 I got some minor cold symptoms for 1-2 days while on the Big Island after being in a swimming pool with some Asians around. Did not experience ANY cold/flu symptom after. that. I do travel about once per month. My typical cold/flu lasts about 1 day per year. Will keep fingers crossed that this will continue.
So travel brought the virus? Wow. That means that China, Australia, NZ, Singapore, HK etc. are correct in banning/restricting travel. No wonder that the pandemic in the US is never ending, kids are once again missing days and days of school, and on ad on.
Spain, France, and Italy say they have found it in wastewater samples at least a few months earlier than the first reported cases. In Italy a University in Milan was doing some type of cancer screening. They have tested the blood samples from September and October 2019 and found covid antibodies as early as September 2019. These findings have been out for months.