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Comment by hamburgerwah | Hacker News Reader

Anyone paying attention at the time had this information. There is an incredible rewriting of history being attempted. There was a lot of sound evidence that covid started in november or earlier in china and that it leaked from a lab (based on the lockdown and sequestering of lab personnel in december). Any one pointing out those facts in jan/feb/mar was decried as a nut, racist and conspiracy theorist. The earliest random serologic testing in the washington and oregon area plainly showed that covid had been circulating for some time.

Somehow people also seem to like to forget that non-covid SARS leaked out of the beijing bio-lab at least twice resulting in deaths: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096887/

Which they attempted to cover up as well.

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There is a major difference in tracking its origins which pretty much no one disputed was China vs calling it the "China virus" or "Kung Flu". The former is matter of fact and allows for greater discussion of whether it was natural or leaked from a lab. The later can be easily seen and was used towards not only the government of China but also Chinese Americans. Many Asian Americans, including children, were scared for their lives due this.

In short, its not racist to say covid19 originated in China or think a lab leak is a likely possibility that needs a much better investigation or even to think that the Chinese government might be covering it up. It is racist to call it the "China virus" or "Kung Flu" and treat people who had absolutely nothing to do with its origins wrongly.

Is it racist to call the Spanish flu the "Spanish Flu"?

Technically? Either way it's a lazy name since it was traced to the Midwest US.

IMO year based names (like the 1918 pandemic) are better still since even if they emerged sooner the undeniable historical impact is likely within a year or so of its recognition.

No. It wasn't. The flu of 1918 was never successfully traced back. There are multiple possible origins (by coincidence, including China).

We'll probably never know.

https://www.history.com/news/china-epicenter-of-1918-flu-pan...

If true then even more reason to use the year of emergence

It is true. And yes, using the year is more politically correct given the current culture and climate.

I think the question of naming is less of origin, and more of cultures and what offends someone. Back when and where I was a kid growing up, people were mature enough to realize that terms like "Spanish flu" or "Chinese coronavirus" weren't condemnations of Spain or China, and we somehow never saw violence or offense over these sorts of things.

They were neutral, factual descriptions. And yes, factually, the Spanish flu was first widely reported in Spanish newspapers.

In the US in 2021, it seems like racial tensions run high, and these sorts of thing DO lead to offense and violence.

It's an odd shift, but not an unreasonable one. A big part of this has to do with intention. With COVID19, the racial terms were intended to be offensive by many who used them. Whether someone is trying to insult you goes a long ways to whether you might reasonably feel insulted.

Have you heard of anyone being insulted by "Spanish flu" prior to the e.g. 1980?

As a footnote, a more subtle way to play this is to code switch language based on where you are. In China, I don't get offended by people calling me fat, whereas in the US, I do.

Yes, it's just less obvious since it's old.

And "Spanish flu" is called that because the Spanish discovered it, not because it was based in Spain. But most people didn't realize that then or now.

What about the Ebola virus? Is that racist too? If not, why?

Not quite. It was called the Spanish Flu because the Spanish press, being neutral during WWI, were free to write about the flu epidemic, while wartime censors in every other major country blocked any mention of it. But nonetheless, it almost certainly didn’t originate in Spain. https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-f...

Spanish isn't a racist name for Spanish people... Kung Flu is racist... it's not. that. hard.

According to a Red Cross study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33252659/), Covid-19 may have been in the US before the first official cases, and if so, it's entirely plausible it was community transmission and not foreign travel.

I wonder why this study has not been repeated for blood samples collected before December 2019?

Thanks for citing that recent serological study which presents evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating the U.S. as early as 13-16 December 2019 (here's a slightly better link [1]).

FWIW here is another reference with similar findings [2], and also a paper (cited in the OP) suggesting infections were massively under-reported early in the pandemic [3].

> By mid-July of 2020, 16.8 million people had an undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infection, almost five times the rate of diagnosed infections. [2]

> I wonder why this study has not been repeated for blood samples collected before December 2019?

Speculating but it's probably because such research is expensive and knowing the exact date of the first infection may not be particularly useful.

[1] Serologic Testing of US Blood Donations to Identify Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)–Reactive Antibodies: December 2019–January 2020 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/72/12/e1004/6012472

[2] Identification of the first COVID-19 infections in the US using a retrospective analysis https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-707353/v1/baa84b8...

[3] Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/601/eabh3826

>and that it leaked from a lab (based on the lockdown and sequestering of lab personnel in december).

You say "sound evidence" and then name some circumstantial evidence. This is similar types of evidence used for the "Fort Detrick origin" story. It was shut down in August 2019 for safety violations, and the Wuhan military games "could be" how it spread to China.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

It's not a conspiracy theory.

It's likely true but it's still a conspiracy theory because it involves multiple parties conspiring in secret.

I skimmed your article but I don't see any "sound evidence" proposed in the article either.

The line between "conspiracy theory" and "a theoretically possible hypothesis that can neither be proven nor ruled out" is kind of murky for me, but if you are claiming "there are sound evidence that COVID comes from a lab leak", then you cannot support your argument by only citing "space for reasonable doubts" (which is what your article said).

I didn't say it was "sound evidence", I just said it's not a conspiracy theory..? (If it's not clear, I'm not the OP - maybe try skimming less)

Despite that fact...the seemingly bought and paid for WHO were still claiming in late January that there was no person to person transmission. That stopped the US from doing any sort of checks of any sort and life went on...all the while the virus was spreading all over the country.

As far as I know at that time they had no proof of person to person transmission. There are many coronaviruses in the wild, across many animal hosts, some can hop from person to person, some cannot. Many/most medical professionals did they same - stuck to the evidence and refused to hypothesize.

Why do you say the WHO are bought and paid for? Do you have any real evidence of that?

China refused to let the WHO in and do actual investigative work. Instead they took China's word for it and repeated whatever they said as fact. China covered up the spread of the disease and instead tried to hide it. The fact that the WHO doesn't recognize Taiwan (like there is no such place) and refused to act on information they had saying there was problems in Wuhan because China won't let them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/17/trumps-fa...

>That same day, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control said it sent an email to the WHO regarding rumors of at least “seven cases of atypical pneumonia,” which it said is code in China for “a disease transmitted between humans caused by coronavirus.”

Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, and the WHO says the email never mentioned human-to-human transmission. “Public health professionals could discern from this wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease,” the Taiwan CDC argues. “However, because at the time there were as yet no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-human transmission.”

Apparently, Taiwanese officials had been alerted to Dec. 30 posts in a chat room by a doctor, Li Wenliang, in which he said that seven cases he had been treating resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a deadly form of coronavirus. Li was reprimanded by the Chinese government for illegally spreading rumors. He later died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Taiwan actually rounded up tourists from the mainland and sent them back home, then locked down travel for all. They took it seriously from the start, ignored what the WHO and CCP were saying. I don't doubt there were many more reports from Taiwanese on the mainland, over just the posts by Li.

Yep...because if anyone has a huge amount of skepticism of Chinese information it's going to be Taiwan. They have recently taken a turn for the worse, but they managed through over a year with very little infections (<1,000) because they acted early and took every precaution...including travel bans. They saw a huge jump in May and took immediate action and the new infection rate is now low double digits per day.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/

I don't dispute anything in the Washington post link you sent, perhaps we are just reading it differently. I didn't think that it supported your position. Here's some of the poignant WHO statements from that article, made between Dec 31 to Jan 20 at the start of the pandemic:

> The WHO is heavily reliant on information provided by countries and cannot fine countries that fail to provide accurate information.

> However, because at the time there were as yet no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-human transmission

> Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses with some causing less-severe disease, such as the common cold, and others more severe disease such as MERS and SARS. Some transmit easily from person to person, while others do not. According to Chinese authorities, the virus in question can cause severe illness in some patients and does not transmit readily between people.

> Based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported

> Based on experience with SARS and MERS ... protect health workers recommending droplet and contact precautions when caring for patients, and airborne precautions

> At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission.

> The way these patients became infected is not yet known.

> based on the available information there is no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission

> Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission

> It is still early days, we don’t have a clear clinical picture

> There is the possibility that transmission can be amplified. Most notably in health-care facilities

> some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts

> It is now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission of #nCoV2019. Infections among health care workers strengthen the evidence for this

So it looks to me like the WHO is in the position of relaying the data they get from China. They said this. They also relayed other very relevant info about the behaviour or other coronaviruses, saying that human-to-human transmission could go either way. Furthermore they relayed new information as it became available.

I don't see any of this as an indication that they were bought and paid for. Do you assume that the WHO could force their way into places the Chinese government wouldn't allow them? That's not how international organizations work.

It would make more sense if you suspected that the Chinese were witholding data. But you haven't provided any evidence that WHO did.

The WHO refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan exists...because of China. A supposedly independent organization that is supposed to be above politics...won't recognize an island of more than 30 million people. Taiwan proved that they knew something was up and did the right thing early on...all while trying to get the word out. The WHO never passed that information on and instead only repeated what China told it...then the US followed the advice of the WHO and utterly failed in it's response.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52088167

About 90% of the countries in the world, including the U.S., do not recognize Taiwan, because of diplomatic pressure from China. In China's view Taiwan is a rebellious state that only exists due to foreign interference.

That's not something that the WHO decided to do. The WHO is an international organization setup by participating countries to operate under rules they, as a group, specify and sign onto. The U.S. was involved in this. The WHO can't do whatever they want.

So I would agree with you that it appears that the WHO may not have relayed the Dec 31 email from Taiwan, as per the Washington Post article you linked to. It's probably safer to blame this more on bureaucratic stupidy than malice. But they did have a release 6 days later on Jan 6, with many more releases over the month relaying the information they received, including warnings about and suspicion of human transmission several days later, then on Jan 14, confirmation of human to human transmission.

You earlier claimed that delayed reporting from the WHO "stopped the US from doing any sort of checks of any sort and life went on...all the while the virus was spreading all over the country."

So when did the U.S. first take action? February? March? Are you saying that the delay between the Dec 31 email from Taiwan and the WHO release on Jan 6 made a difference? If so, then why did the U.S. wait so long to react after the reports of human to human transmission?

Do you understand why I don't follow your logic? You seem to be insisting on a conspiracy where I'm not seeing the link between cause and affect that you are. Perhaps you are looking too hard for a scapegoat?

Depends upon what is evidence, what is influence, what is not allow … and do not hypothesise ! The whole science is based on doing hypotheses. And imagining something not allowed or again st established thinking based on fact on the ground. Who has not. Medical journal has not. It killed us …

> WHO > That stopped the US from doing any sort of checks

Rubbish. Since when does the US listen to overseas authorities - only when you can use them as an excuse.

Taiwan instigated their procedures to start lockdown on people from China on December 31st, 2019.

The US has their own sources of information, and chose to ignore them, and the US has been burdened by the consequences of the poor decision making of your authorities.

Disclaimer: I am from New Zealand, that has so far done pretty well, which isn’t simply because we are a pacific island.

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