September 2019 searches in Hubei(Wuhan is capital of Hubei)
Source: Eric Haseltine from Google Trends
Posted on 05/15/2020 4:34:45 PM PDT by Theoria
What was known and when was it known?
A May 5th, 2020 article by Van Dorp et al in the journal Infection, Genetics, and Evolution suggests that COVID-19 made the jump from animals to humans sometime between October 6 and December 11, 2019. The authors arrived at this timeline by analyzing the genetic sequences of many diverse strains of the virus to determine the “Time of the Most Recent Common Ancestor” (tMRCA) of 7666 different strains of the virus.
Because the earliest documented case of COVID-19 in China was November 17, according to Chinese government reports, the very first infections probably occurred near the beginning of Van Dorp et al’s estimated window (the first patients exhibited symptoms up to two weeks following exposure).
Indeed the authors of the May 5th article cite findings by other researchers estimating tMRCA dates as early as August 2019.
Given these estimates, it is natural to ask, when did medical professionals and/or government officials first become aware that a novel coronavirus had likely emerged?
Due to the political sensitivity of this question, we will likely never know the answer for certain, but careful analysis of online search data provides tantalizing hints.
Both Google and Wikipedia keep meticulous records of terms and phrases searched on their respective sites, showing what search terms in the past were of interest, and in some cases, where these search terms were of interest. If people in a position to know had started to see evidence of a new disease outbreak, it is possible, even likely, they would have searched Google and Wikipedia for relevant information.
Here’s what Google and Wikipedia’s records show.
Google Trends, which displays “normalized” search traffic for specific queries, localized to specific geographic regions, showed two “blips” in search interest in China for the terms “Coronavirus” and “SARS’, one in Hubei province ( where Wuhan is the capitol) in September 2019 and one in Beijing in October 2019. Because the data are normalized (given as ratios of search to the maximum number of searches for that term) only Google knows the actual raw numbers of searches for any given term, but the normalized data do give an indication of changes in the relative volume of search.article continues after advertisement
Wikipedia, which does reveal the raw numbers of searches for particular terms, showed a jump in baseline search interest in “Coronavirus” from under 100 per day to 1124 searches on October 12, 2019. On the same day, Wikipedia searches for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-novel coronavirus is now also called SARS-CoV2) jumped from a baseline of 200-300 searches per day to 1334 per day. Wikipedia does not publish the geographic origin of searches on their sites, only they know where the queries originated.
Taken together, the “blips” in Google and Wikipedia search records suggest a heightened curiosity about SARS/Coronavirus in early Fall 2019, one to two months before the first confirmed cases.
It is important to emphasize that these findings might be unrelated to the pandemic because there have been repeated spikes in search interest both SARS and coronavirus on both Google and Wikipedia over the past 15 years; the recent “blips” in query volume could be just random statistical anomalies that do not indicate what medical or government officials knew or when they knew it. Also, given the incendiary politics surrounding the pandemic and charges of "coverup" circulating, it would also be irresponsible to imply that—even if the blips were "real"—that elevated search interest, all by itself, was proof of malicious intent on anyone's part.
I agree with my brother, former Harvard Virologist Dr. William Haseltine, who asserted that undue focus on the origins of the pandemic dangerously distracts us from the far more important task of quickly bringing the pandemic to an end.
Still, the timing of the “blips” relative to Van Dorp et al's genetic analyses is intellectually intriguing: Sometimes a cigar, as Freud is reported to have said, is just a cigar.
But is a blip always just a blip?
References
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567134820301829
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01315-7
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back
“made the jump from animals to humans”..
No credibility.
I disagree with your brother, former Harvard Virologist Dr. William Haseltine, and with his former colleague, Dr. Charles Lieber, the former Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department (until he was arrested) and also a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT).
“Earlier today, former Harvard prof & Dept Chair, William Haseltine, completely eviscerated anti-malaria drugs & later in the interview pushed for anti-serums.”
Coincidence?
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/fni-fni062105.php
“The steering committee, currently being assembled includes: ... Dr. Charles M. Lieber, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University; Dr. William A. Haseltine, President, William A. Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts ...”
Wuhan virology lab runs its routine research and production on animals, including both bats and pigs. It is rumored that when the lab has used up a batch of animals such that they are not valid subjects for further tests, then the lab sells those animals to the market.
It is very possible that there was animal to human path. It is very possible that there are two or more paths and two or more #1s. We in the US do not know.
Maybe a few in Wuhan knew. They are not talking. China might have its own form of Hillarycide.
“.....It is important to emphasize that these findings might be unrelated to the pandemic because there have been repeated spikes in search interest both SARS and coronavirus on both Google and Wikipedia over the past 15 years; the recent “blips” in query volume could be just random statistical anomalies that do not indicate what medical or government officials knew or when they knew it. Also, given the incendiary politics surrounding the pandemic and charges of “coverup” circulating, it would also be irresponsible to imply that—even if the blips were “real”—that elevated search interest, all by itself, was proof of malicious intent on anyone’s part......”
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Well, I don’t know about “malicious intent” but the smell of smoke being blown in this article is very clear to me.
It isn’t possible that, outside the Wuhan virus labs that the virus “made the jump” from animals that exist nowhere near Wuhan to humans at the wet market. There’s reportedly some rather inexplicable evidence of splicing in the virus RNA that cannot be reconciled with animal to human jumping.
“No credibility.”
Why not?
Gain of function
wouldn’t that blip be explained by the interest in the 201 conference around that time?
“Gain of function”
?
1) We don’t know for a fact that it was ever first in animals.
2) We don’t know for a fact whether it originated in an animal in a lab, an animal outside a lab, or in a test tube and not in an animal at all.
3) Maybe the people who do know are sharing notes with Seth Rich right now.
1) We don’t know for a fact that it was ever first in animals.
2) We don’t know for a fact whether it originated in an animal in a lab, an animal outside a lab, or in a test tube and not in an animal at all.
3) Maybe the people who do know are sharing notes with Seth Rich right now.
“The authors arrived at this timeline by analyzing the genetic sequences of many diverse strains of the virus to determine the “Time of the Most Recent Common Ancestor” (tMRCA) of 7666 different strains of the virus.”
Advancing the virus’ effectiveness in a bad way.
You’re right, it has not been proven.
And that is why these opinion writers who unflinchingly repeat the CCP line “made the jump”, as if it’s totally settled, have no credibility.
This is exactly the tactic by which Obama became a natural born citizen, and global warming became settled science. Just keep repeating it as if it were true. Eventually other “authorities” will start quoting these “authorities” as evidence.
Once that happens, anyone who questions the Communist narrative will be labeled as a nut-job-conspiracy-theorist.
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