Regarding the ‘When’ Question …
‘Why’ is always the best question, but the massive Covid cover-up started with the ‘When’ question.

When did the novel corona virus really begin to spread and spread widely?
To myself, this question would qualify as one of the most important questions public health officials (and journalists) would seek to answer.
But among the cohort of officials who matter, nobody is interested in discovering this answer.
IMO, this lack of curiosity about such an important question is the “tell” that probably tells us everything we need to know about the saga of Covid-19.
Important people and organizations do NOT want to provide a definitive answer to this vital question.
As no logical reason exists that would explain why this is the case, it seems obvious to myself the truthful answer to this question must be viewed as “thermo-nuclear.”
IMO, the Powers that Be are covering up the real origins or birth date of Covid-19. Per my case hypothesis, the reason they are doing this is because the answer would almost-assuredly implicate the U.S. government and/or perhaps other diabolical rogue actors in an event that ultimately produced “crimes against humanity.”
A quick caveat or disclaimer …
I want to, again, state that my “early spread” hypothesis is just that - a hypothesis or theory … a line of reasoning, I admit, may be wrong.
That is, I admit it’s possible no contagious “novel virus” ever existed. The hundreds (or thousands) of people I’ve identified in the world who had Covid symptoms in the year 2019 and later tested positive for antibodies could have simply been sick from influenza or any ILI. (This “evidence” was simply an odd coincidence.)
Thousands of positive antibody tests could be explained by “false positive” results.
Covid as we know it was quickly framed and defined by a new “diagnostic test” - the PCR test. But hardly anyone in the world was administered a PCR test before March 2020.
To many skeptics of the official narrative, it’s clear the PCR test might produce more than 90 percent “false positives.” Indeed, this rapidly-created and approved diagnostic test was the key construct of what was, largely, a faux pandemic imo.
But in my contrarian (and taboo) research, I’m more interested in the validity of antibody tests. Three questions I keep asking:
Was every positive antibody test of a possible early case wrong?
The public can believe the results of antibody tests people receive today, but we’re supposed to discount every positive result from March to May 2020?
The tests were “junk” for the first months of the pandemic, but are now infallible and accurate?
The disinterest in symptoms …
In my scores of “early spread” articles, another point I’ve tried to highlight is that Covid symptoms should matter or provide potentially significant information. However, nobody (who matters) seems to agree with me … which strikes me as … very odd.
As I documented two years ago with one of my more significant research projects, a record number of students and teachers became sick in the months before official Covid, causing school superintendents to close a record number of schools “due to illness.” (Note: See links in today’s Reader Comments).
More than a year after I published this story, I was stunned to learn that the CDC performed a more comprehensive study of “school closings by year,” a paper which not only corroborated my findings, but researchers found thousands of more schools that had closed due to illness.
I was stunned the CDC would commission such a study, but wasn’t surprised the study received virtually no media attention.
Per the CDC, the number of school closings in America in late 2019 and early 2020 was massively higher than the average number of school closings in the previous six flu seasons.
With this study, the giant “tell” was that no author spent one sentence trying to answer the question why so many more schools would have closed in this flu season.
In my view, “why” is always the best and most-important question. In my Covid research and investigations, I’ve concluded that no one who matters ever asks why something happened … or didn’t happen.
In the three years I’ve published this newsletter I’ve developed one strongly-held take-away: These people must know, or suspect, why something happened (or didn’t happen) … but don’t want the public to know these answers.
A few “why” questions I’ve tried to highlight …
Why did Michael Melham, the mayor of Bellville, NJ, experience definite Covid symptoms at an Atlantic City conference in November 2019 … and five months later test positive for Covid antibodies (with two different assays)?
Why did Tim and Brandie McCain of little, rural Sylacauga, Alabama become very sick in December 2019 .. and in late April 2020 both test positive for Covid antibodies? (Brandie eventually received two more antibody tests - also positive).
From mid-March to mid-April 2020, crew members on the USS Teddy Roosevelt reportedly experienced an outbreak of Covid. From April 20-24, the Navy and CDC conducted a “voluntary” antibody study of which 382 of the 4,800 crew members participated.
Two hundred twenty eight (228) crew members (60 percent) tested positive for antibodies. The researchers also asked crew members to fill out questionnaires, and disclose if they’d experienced Covid/ILI symptoms and, if so, when these symptoms commenced.
Two of the antibody-positive sailors experienced Covid symptoms on or before the date the ship left port on January 17, 2020. Another dozen positive crew members reported they’d experienced ILI symptoms before the ship made its first port-of-call in Vietnam in early March, 2020.
For a week or two, the saga of the Roosevelt “outbreak” received saturation media coverage. A major Congressional investigation later occurred.
In a period of about two months, the CDC published a paper on the results of the antibody study. Hundreds of news organizations wrote articles about the Roosevelt Covid saga.
Not one of these papers, investigations or studies asked the most obvious question: How - or when - did at least 14 crew members who had definite Covid symptoms and later tested positive for “confirmed” Covid via gold-standard antibody tests … get infected by this virus?
Of note, the CDC and Navy failed to question or interview any of the 229 sailors who tested positive for antibodies.
Nor did the CDC interview any of the 106 Red Cross blood donors who donated blood between December 13, 2019 and early January 2020 - all of whom had positive antibody results.
No public health official ever contacted Mayor Melham of New Jersey after he went public with his belief he’d had early Covid. Nor did they contact any of the “many” other people at this conference who Mayor Melham said also became sick at the same time.
I know one influential and important public health official in Alabama, Dr. Karen Landers of the Alabama Department of Public Health, knows all the details about the McCains’ possible early cases - because I told her in a 45-minute phone interview.
I bluntly told this public health official: “You and the ADPH need to contact the McCains and investigate this possible early case.”
Landers nor anyone from the ADPH ever did this, even after Brandie McCain left Dr. Landers two voice mails, pleading with someone from this “public health agency” to please contact her.
I even left a phone message for Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of infectious diseases at UAB, giving her or her assistants all the details about the McCains’ possible early cases. (Dr. Marrazzo later succeeded Anthony Fauci as director of the NIAD.)
I also sent emails to Dr. Marrazzo and the media affairs staffers at UAB’s highly-acclaimed Department of Infectious Diseases. These staffers also ignored or dismissed my information about two cases that might have been the first “confirmed” cases in the entire world.
Another story I published provided copious evidence that hundreds of athletes and visitors to the October 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan came down sick with Covid symptoms.
While it’s possible all of these sick visitors had an ILI, it’s also possible at least some of them might have had “early Covid.” Again, the glaring “tell” is that no official in any country ever interviewed these athletes or administered any of them antibody tests.
FWIW, I’ve also emailed countless corporate journalists, sharing my early spread information and asking them to perform their own investigations. Crickets all the way down.
A Question for my Readers …
If readers of this Substack newsletter were me and possessed all of the background information I’ve shared above, what conclusions would you make about the competence, integrity and credibility of America’s trusted public health officials?
Speaking for myself, I quickly concluded these officials are either grossly incompetent - and should be fired for gross malfeasance - or they have knowingly participated in a massive cover-up designed to conceal potentially explosive and scandalous revelations.
By now, all of my regular readers must know several of my iron-clad “Covid Maxims,” one of which states, “Officials will never investigate that which they don’t want to confirm.”
(This maxim explains many curious elements of the Covid saga. For example, it provides citizens with critical-thinking abilities the answer to the question of why officials, five years later, won’t investigate the embalmers’ clots.)
***
For myself, THE question is why are so many officials unwilling to do their jobs? Why did common-sense investigations into possible early spread never occur?
The question, in my opinion, answers itself.
Legions of officials (and “watchdog” corporate journalists) must know these answers - if definitively proven - would or could be thermo-nuclear and would blow-up the official Covid narrative.
To be more clear, I am not saying every public health official in America and the world knows “what really happened.” Most assuredly do not. However, they all obviously know what the authorized narrative is and that it is their job to protect the authorized narrative.
The “authorized narrative” - once labeled “settled science” - is that Covid began in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China and the “origination” event was a wet market … and this novel virus can be traced to a cave of bats more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan.
This, in my opinion, must be a bogus “cover story.”
Five years later … no definitive answers …
If we know this is definitely not the truth, what is the truth?
One day, some brilliant journalist or investigator might finally give us the real and comprehensive answers.
What’s undeniably true is that tens of thousands of people - individuals with great resources at their disposal, officials and journalists who should have been investigating this issue for five years - all took a pass on this project.
Either nobody who matters wants to know the truth or they are all conspiring to keep the truth from the public.
Which, if you think about it, is “news the public can use” as some of us assess another provocative question: What should citizens do when we know every important truth-seeking organization in the country (and world) is completely captured?
*** (I greatly appreciate the tens of thousands of readers who have read a few of my “Early Spread” stories as well as the far-greater number of articles that address myriad other subjects.) ***
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P.S. - Early Spread Bibliography
In today’s Reader Comments, I added 23 “Early Spread” links from my archives. Believe it or not, this is a partial list of my stories on this subject. Now that I think about it, I could probably use excerpts from these articles to write a book on Early Spread.
I publish this Bibliography on the off chance some official or journalist “who matters” might one day read and think about some of these articles.

EARY SPREAD - Partial Bibliography, articles by Bill Rice, Jr.
Early Spread Evidence in One Document:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/early-spread-evidence-in-one-document
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Lancet/CDC publish paper on record number of school closings …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/i-scooped-the-lancet-and-cdc-by-nine
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My readers provide hundreds of early spread anecdotes …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/i-asked-for-early-spread-anecdotes
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The Red Cross Antibody Study, importance of, oddities of …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-dog-that-didnt-bark
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28 ways officials intentionally concealed early spread evidence (I think this is one of my most-important articles) …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/theory-officials-intentionally-concealed
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Influenza Like Illness Evidence, Part 1 …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/influenza-like-illness-probably-tells
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Lancet/CDC publish paper on record number of school closings …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/i-scooped-the-lancet-and-cdc-by-nine
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My readers provide hundreds of early spread anecdotes …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/i-asked-for-early-spread-anecdotes
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The Red Cross Antibody Study, importance of, oddities of …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-dog-that-didnt-bark
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28 ways officials intentionally concealed early spread evidence (I think this is one of my most-important articles) …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/theory-officials-intentionally-concealed
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Influenza Like Illness Evidence, Part 1 …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/influenza-like-illness-probably-tells
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ILI Evidence, Part 2 - Flu Season of 2019-2020 was one of worst in 40 years, per copious evidence (I think this story is very important)
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/flu-season-of-2019-2020-was-one-of
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My exclusive story, documenting huge number of school closings before official Covid (it turns out, my numbers were very low) …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/school-closings-galore-documented
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Another Exclusive: The 2 key findings from USS Teddy Roosevelt Saga:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/exclusive-first-confirmed-cases-in
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My Deep dive into the Wuhan World Military Games:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/bombshell-report-officials-covered
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Nicolas Hulscher of the Courageous Discourse newsletter interviews me about “early spread” and summarize my evidence in a pithy story:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/courageous-discourse-courageously
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Far more flu tests were given in the flu season of 2019-2020:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/far-more-flu-tests-were-given-in
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I might have found the first Covid case in the UK:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/well-i-just-found-the-first-covid
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How once “case study” by itself could prove early spread …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/one-case-study-proves-early-spread
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Why the start date of the Pandemic had to be delayed (imo) …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-pandemics-start-date-had-to-be
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Was 2020 Sundance Film Festival an early Covid super-spreader event?
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/was-2020-sundance-film-festival-an
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Six Americans died from Covid in January 2020 (per death certificates) …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/six-americans-died-from-covid-in
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The Great Navy Cover-up: Why did the Navy perform antibody tests on crew members of just two of its hundreds of ships?
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-great-navy-cover-up
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The Essential Early-Spread Questions …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-essential-early-spread-questions
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“Case zero” did not come from Wuhan in November or December 2019:
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/case-zeroes-in-world-did-not-come
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CDC press conference on Early Spread was not believable at all …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/documenting-cdc-fibs-or-truth-stretchers
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Fauci Busted for pushing Bogus Virus Origins Narrative …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/fauci-busted-for-pushing-bogus-virus
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Covid didn’t suddenly become “deadly” in April 2020 …
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/covid-didnt-suddenly-become-deadly
Bill good article hear the other question that needs to be investigated and asked who profited using government funds off of the COIVD debacle?