Others are now writing about early spread

I agree with some points made by Will Jones of The Daily Sceptic, but not with some of his main conclusions.

Where and WHEN did this dang virus make its world debut?

Will Jones, the senior editor of the vital contrarian website The Daily Sceptic, has just published an interesting article where he argues that virus spread began in Wuhan.

In the article, Will includes a long paragraph summarizing some of the “early spread” evidence I presented in my most recent Substack article. 

While Will’s main conclusion - substantial or real spread almost certainly began in Wuhan - doesn’t necessarily match my hypothesis, this is a fair hypothesis. That is, it doesn’t bother me that  intelligent people who have studied this topic in depth think this is what the evidence suggests.

I also think it’s entirely possible that “case zero” did occur in Wuhan. However, I also think it’s entirely possible this is not the case.

More than anything, I’m overjoyed that the questions of when, where and how this virus first emerged and began to “spread” is belatedly getting much more attention (at least at The Daily Sceptic and among writers at the Brownstone Institute).

Where We Agree …

Will seems to accept that some people (not in Wuhan) were already being infected in November 2019 and he also agrees with me that it’s a puzzler that authorities haven’t done more to investigate the convincing claims of these individuals.

My Two Quibbles …

My two main quibbles with Will’s presentation would be his conclusions that this “early spread” evidence only dates to November 2019 (and not earlier) and his hypothesis that only “low level” spread was occurring. (The virus, for some reason, wasn’t being transmitted “person to person” in large numbers even in the communities where people obviously had been infected).

I think the evidence I’ve documented strongly suggests Americans (and people in Italy and France and perhaps one person in the UK) were being infected by some point in October 2019 if not earlier.

I’m back to talking about Mayor Melham’s early case …

Take the example of Mayor Michael Melham, which Will mentions in his article.

Melham experienced Covid symptoms sometimes between Nov. 19-21 2019 at a conference in Atlantic City. In late April, he tested positive for antibodies and later got a second positive antibody test.

We really don’t know definitively WHEN Melham was infected. It could have been as late as Nov. 19th (while attending the conference) or perhaps two weeks earlier. 

But Melham didn’t give the virus to himself. He was infected by an unknown person who, by logic, had contracted this virus before him. Furthermore, that unknown person was infected by another unknown person, who had the virus even earlier … and so on.

My supposition is that the chain of transmission that resulted in Melham having symptoms around Nov. 20th probably began in October 2019. 

And the significance of the Red Cross antibody study …

But as I point out in my “evidence in one document” article, I don’t think the earliest “antibody evidence” is the cluster that resulted in Melham being sick. 

I think the “earliest known” (antibody-confirmed) cases in America could instead be found in the tranche of Red Cross blood that was donated Dec. 13-16.

We also don’t know WHEN these 39 positive donors were infected. But we do know it takes “one to three weeks” for detectable levels of antibodies to show up in an antibody test. 

The mid-point of 7 to 21 days is 14 days. So if we work backwards 14 days, the latest this random sample of blood donors could have been infected is Nov. 30th to December 2nd (Dec. 13-16 minus 14 days).

It would seem very odd if all 39 of these people (from three states) were all infected in late November or early December. 

We could deduce that all 39 had been infected in November 2019 IF the authors of the “Red Cross blood study” had included breakdowns on what type of antibodies these people had in their blood. 

If all 39 tested positive for the IgM antibody, then all 39 had been infected in November, maybe even early December. This is because “detectable” levels of IgM antibodies last for only 30 days. The IgM assay is the antibody test that shows “recent” infection.

However, if some of these people tested negative for the IgM antibody and positive for the IgG (long) antibody, we can say with confidence that some members of this antibody-positive group had been infected in October (if not earlier).

Question: Why didn’t authors of the study include this important information in their paper? 

Probably because they didn’t want people to make the same conclusions I just made - i.e. some of the people who donated these blood samples had contracted this virus … by October 2019.

So the CDC’s own study (which wasn’t published until almost a year after these people donated blood) probably provides definitive evidence that Americans in at least three states were being infected in October 2019.

The fact no details on “negative IgM” results was included in the study very likely was an intentional omission. (I also think antibody tests aren’t picking up all early cases/infections).

The theory that virus spread was occurring only at a “low-level” …

I believe the “low level” transmission theory is belied (or challenged) by points dealing with geography. 

If we only include the group of known people who had symptoms in November 2019 and who later tested positive for antibodies, these people were living in the states of California, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Florida, Texas and Nebraska. I could also include citizens from China, France, Italy and at least one person from the UK.

The question then becomes how could “low level” transmission have infected people in at least seven U.S. states and five countries? (I’m confident there were early cases in all 50 states and officials probably know this, but just haven’t reported this).

The simplest answer is often the best and this answer would be that the virus was spreading “person to person” across entire continents.

Also, we really don’t know if these infected people were infecting others. The assumption would be that they were (just like they themselves were infected by unknown people).

Here, some contact tracing of close contacts of these people - and finding out when they may have experienced symptoms - would have been good information to ascertain. 

We also know some spouses were infecting other spouses and Melham notes that “many” people at the same conference were sick with the same symptoms as him. This suggests this virus was contagious and had an N-ought number above 1.5. The fact no effort was made to answer these questions is a “smoking gun” in my opinion.

Needless to say, I’d be happy if the evidence of “early spread” all points to China as this would rule out my own nation and government as being fully or partially responsible for this pandemic and all the disastrous  and deadly “responses” that ensued. 

But if we follow the antibody evidence - and make some common-sense inferences from these likely early cases - it seems pretty obvious to me that spread was occurring in America (and other countries) in October 2019 if not earlier.

And this spread likely wasn’t “limited” and I wouldn’t characterize this as “low level” spread (although I think this is a perfectly good and fair theory).

I also think the Influenza Like Illness (ILI) evidence supports my hypothesis as well.

Large numbers of people who were testing negative for influenza were getting sick with Covid symptoms between November 1, 2019 and early March 2020. But since no PCR tests were available and probably 95 percent of people who had these symptoms didn’t get an antibody test in late April or early May 2020, it’s admittedly hard to “confirm” this hypothesis (which was probably by design).

I also think the “authorized” antibody tests administered three to six months after people experienced symptoms weren’t picking up all the true early infections.

Red Dawn email exchange bolsters my theory …

Thanks to the excellent Brownstone Institute website, I've read the released info on the “Red Dawn” email group/chain. Somewhere in this thread, one participant complains about the lack of "surveillance" or early diagnostic testing (the lack of early PCR tests).

This virus expert notes correctly (IMO), paraphrasing, that if "there's one (confirmed) case, there's many cases." The person is admitting officials really don't know how many people have already been infected. And/or that one infection was not going to remain just one infection.

While several officials participating in this email group complained about the delays in getting wide-spread testing by PCR tests, I didn't see anyone who asked this question: “Why don't we go back and test some archived Red Cross blood for antibodies?”

Also, nobody said, “Let's start testing a ton of people for Covid antibodies.”

Anyway, it seemed to be taken for granted that if a few people had Covid, the virus was going to quickly spread from these people … which is what I think happened … from “person to person” from sea to shining sea.

If enough people like Will Jones keep asking good questions, maybe one day we’ll find out where and when the first cases of Covid actually occurred … and who was responsible for the “crime against humanity” that this event spawned.