Wait, what? The same virus? March 2019? Are we sure that's not an off-by-one typo, or an error?
If that date stands up to scrutiny, wouldn't it call into question everything we thought we knew about the origins and history of covid-19?
If that date stands up to scrutiny, wouldn't it call into question everything we thought we knew about the origins and history of covid-19?
I bet there are other assumptions without which it doesn't call into question what we think we know.
> Per the study, sewage includes rainwater from open drains.
There are even more details in the study.
Quote from article:
...”This possibility prompted us to analyze some archival WWTP samples from January 2018 to December 2019 (Figure 2). All samples came out to be negative for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomes with the exception of March 12, 2019, in which both IP2 and IP4 target assays were positive. This striking finding indicates circulation of the virus in Barcelona long before the report of any COVID-19 case worldwide.”
People started dropping like flies from AIDS in the 1980s from an otherwise completely benign virus they had for 10-12 years, which we didn't know existed and later identified as HIV. A virus which now we are still tracing further and further back, earliest human infection now being 1909. Everything that happened over the last century co-existed with a virus we didn't know was around and slowly incubating and slowly spreading.
The similarity being that we know it is possible, and its really opportunistic infections that cause issues with HIV. With SARS-CoV-2 we have identified A virus and have been trying to trace its origin and are still trying to understand its actual effects.
But maybe its not alone and isn't new.
So therefore it is a non-negligible possibility that there is an additional opportunistic infection that causes issues with SARS-CoV-2.
Or we can dismiss it as a false positive and not mention it at all.
But to such an extent, and in Barcelona? It's still quite unlikely, though in the realm of possibility.
The evidence from the study does not support that theory:
"All samples from January 2018 to December 2019 came out to be negative for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomes with the exception of March 12, 2019."
Recall the apparently 'exponential' increase in cases was in reality an exponential increase in testing - when viewed as a proportion of tests yielding a positive result the virus was spreading not especially fast, and the positive percentage went up quite slowly from a non-zero base.
There are vested interests with a great deal to lose if no counter narrative to the origin of the virus turns up... and they’re already seeding all kinds of conspiracy theories all over the place.
So, while I’m all for “science”, under the circumstances, the burden of “prove this isn’t a false positive” is overwhelmingly higher than the due diligence taken here.
So, yes, it would, but no, it doesn’t.
Guess I'm under the rock here—what are those interests? To my knowledge, Trump does the most, ahem, novel hypothesizing, which is pretty much expected routine by now.