At a celebratory lunch last weekend Covid19 was discussed, this was not unusual as our restaurant was operating under pandemic social distancing rules. A friend remarked that they had been warned about Covid19 as a result of a meeting, connected with a sporting club we both belong to, by another acquaintance “between Christmas and New Year’s Eve ”.
I asked twice about the dates – they were adamant about them. It was before January. The content of the warning was also specific – “potential pandemic and you are not to book the cruise you are contemplating.”
I am familiar with conspiracy theory construction: dancing Israelis, cryptic warnings not to go to work on 9/11, etc. However I had a name and I have checked the profession of the alleged source of the warning – it’s a senior virologist, so that part is credible.
I have not checked the date of the meeting which I might be able to do. However if the dates stack up, there was international professional notice in virology circles of what has become Covid19 before China’s announcement on New Year’s eve.
I imagine that the intelligence community has a much better understanding of exactly what has happened than I do, but if substantiated, this tidbit is further evidence that China has a case to answer for not officially alerting the WHO sooner. The Australian economy is already experiencing the consequences of Chinese Government displeasure for our support for an international inquiry into this matter.
The lunch was excellent. I had two glasses of Torbreck Shiraz.
Well Walrus, I knew a Refusnik who told me that during an interrogation, a KGB Officer had told him that Nixon would elected.
Evidently, there are excellent analytical and data acquisition capabilities extant among a few of the world’s intelligence agencies.
Another odd local tidbit -a strangely worded ad in the months before the Great Global Covid Unleashing for a bank’s CD rate with the warning, “do it now or you will be sorry”. Huh?
First Republic Bank – what did they know or why the somewhat dire and scolding warning. Was it just marketing hype? But it struck me as very odd at the time, when we were still floating in the “best economy, best stock market and best unemployment rates” ever.
Another “tip” that may warrant a follow up. Add to the collection. When things were looking so good, why would i be sorry? Then Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump’s SOTU speech on live TV, and the bottom fell out of everything.
This thread describes well the use of psychological pressure by the CCP on POWs captured during the Korean War.
https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1272180537541656577?s=21
This should be in our minds as CCP runs influence campaigns. I have been involved with companies that tried to crack the Chinese market. In every case the tactic was the requirement to provide the Chinese “partner” the technology in order to gain access. Once the Chinese “partner” learned the USP they moved on and abrogated all the contractual terms knowing that the company could get no redress in CCP “courts”.
Full decoupling is the only answer. But CCP cash to influencers in the political, thinktank, academia and media establishment prevents acting on the duplicity of the CCP.
There is plenty of data which suggests that the medical system in Wuhan already had an unusually high number of respiratory disease patients in October/November 2019:
Significant spikes in hospital traffic and Baidu internet searches for terms related to COVID-19 suggest that the virus hit Wuhan, China “beginning in late Summer and early Fall 2019,” according to a new study by Harvard Medical School.
Commercial satellite imagery reveal “a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019,” according to Harvard’s Dr. John Brownstein who led the research, adding that the increase in traffic “coincided with” increased queries on Chinese search engine Baidu for “certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/satellite-data-suggests-covid-19-hit-china-long-previously-known-harvard
But I do not know when exactly the Chinese realized that they were dealing with an entirely new virus.
Don’t know about other countries, but in France there was a first (known) case before China…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/europe/france-coronavirus-timeline.html
What a shame. We could have got on top of it then. Plenty of time to lay in supplies and make sure the care homes were isolated. Even at that early stage it would have been a little late for travel bans or quarantining, but maybe not too late.
As late as mid-February the European body responsible was still advising that there was a low level of risk to the general population. I think HMG took its cue from that, though the Germans seem not to have and were getting ready by January.
Don’t know about the Chinese but would you say that the WHO was more interested in diplomacy than pandemic prevention in those early days?
There is a bit of information about China’s influence in Ethiopia. Dr. Tedros, who heads the WHO, is Ethiopian.
I would suppose that conspiracy theorists–and others who just find this information “interesting’ could make something of that Chinese/Ethiopian/WHO connection.
Democrat talking heads a while back laid into Trump for not stopping this Covid scourage sooner, like in Oct?November. it was one of of those oft-repeated echo chamber sound bites that made the liberal media circuit.
Then this specific accusation was heard no more, when the rebuttal was the official WHO denial of anything happening before January. What was the source of this Democrat talking head Oct/Nov claim that Trump should have known about .
Someone needs to question each one of them who made this Oct/Nov claim – because they certainly enjoyed using it to beat Trump up and claim the entire Covid “death count” was blood on his hands.
What did they know and when did they know it since they spoke so authoritatively “everyone knew” covid was a problem in Oct/Nov. When was the SNL skit spoofing Ben Carson and Pence claiming “it was gonna be bad, real bad? When at the time of the skit it was not.
Feb 29, 2020 – SNL skit on Pence/Carson Covid crisis – before it had become a wholesale crisis in the US.
See if you can stomach the gratuitous attacks on the Trump White House, even though at the time SNL crowd thought everything was still very much a laughing matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4qvO0StKto
Basicaily they are saying, if we can use Covid to attack Trump, let’s go for it.
This skit was written several weeks before all hell broke loose in the US by March 15. What did SNL know and why did they know it in the the weeks prior to Feb 29?
this tidbit is further evidence that China has a case to answer for not officially alerting the WHO sooner.?
There is a Q&A in our future, but China is unlikely to figure prominently in it, as these snippets suggest:
Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, said the virus might have been spreading quietly in humans for years, or even decades, without causing a detectable outbreak. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077442/coronavirus-pathogen-could-have-been-spreading-humans-decades.
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, said coronavirus may have been circulating in the country since November https://www.ft.com/content/aba67162-9129-41b9-b82b-d61a890e6589
Dr. Junya Fukushima (Gastroenterologist, University of Tsukuba). From fb, “In August 2019, the new coronavirus COVID-19 had invaded and spread in Japan.” In Japan, this year’s infection is the second wave. A large-scale antibody test is desirable in the future. #covid19. https://mobile.twitter.com/isaiah_sweetie/status/1257885191864897536
The coronavirus spreading in New York is unlikely to have come directly from China, but from infected people travelling to the United States from Europe, according to a new study.Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York said genetic analysis of samples taken from 84 Covid-19 patients in the city showed “limited evidence” of direct introductions from China, where the virus was first identified at the end of last year. In most cases, the source of the infection was “untracked transmission between the US and Europe”, according to the study, which was published in Science magazine last week.https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3087558/new-york-coronavirus-came-europe-not-directly-china-scientists
CNN host Chris Cuomo said he believes there will be revelations showing the novel coronavirus was spreading in the United States as early as October. “The kids now anecdotally, Cristina believes, that at least two of them have had it in the last few months. Why? We don’t know, but atypically long-duration sinus, fever, lethargy. I think we’re going to learn that coronavirus has been in this country since, like, October, that there have been cases,” Cuomo said. “And as you guys both know, and I hear all the time from all over the country, how many people do you hear saying, ‘I think I had it, I had this and this, I lost my sense of smell and this and that, but I never got tested’? Those cases are, like, abounding all over the country,” he added. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/chris-cuomo-predicts-evidence-will-show-coronavirus-was-spreading-in-us-since-october.
Belleville, NJ, Mayor Michael Melham said he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, adding that he believes he was sick with the virus in November — more than a month before doctors in China first reported cases of the new disease. Melham said he was sick toward the end of November and suffered from chills, hallucinations and a “skyrocketing temperature” after he left the League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City.Melham said it was the sickest he had ever been in his adult life. He did not take a flu test and said he did not travel overseas. Melham said he later suspected he had contracted the coronavirus in November but dismissed the notion because the earliest cases in the United States weren’t reported until January. His November illness is what prompted Melham to ask his doctor for the blood test. He got the results Wednesday.The mayor said it is entirely possible he was exposed to the coronavirus later and was asymptomatic, but felt it was “highly, highly unlikely.The antibody in my blood is older as opposed to the more recent one showing you just finished fighting it off,” Melham said.Melham believes he could potentially be an early, undetected case of the coronavirus.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/essex/belleville/2020/04/30/belleville-nj-mayor-tests-positive-coronavirus-antibodies/3057925001/
Coronavirus was in Florida before we knew it: A Miami Herald analysis shows state health officials have documented at least 170 COVID-19 patients reporting symptoms between Dec. 31, 2019, and Feb. 29. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/05/coranavirus-was-in-florida-before-we-knew-it/ and https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/florida-coronavirus-up-to-171-cases-detected-in-jan-feb-health-officials-say/
Well, to be honest, the second sentence in this wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_mainland_China
says this:
“A Wuhan hospital notified the local center for disease control and prevention (CDC) and health commissions on 27 December 2019.”
So it is possible for a senior Australian virologist with good lines of communications to hear about it between Christmas and the New Year.
He/she would have to have got their scoop via health authorities at the local (i.e. Wuhan) level but, yes, it is certainly possible though it would have been extraordinarily slick work on their part.
This doesn’t square with the China-hid-it-from-the-world narrative if a Western professorial type was talking about it openly that early.
Perhaps if we had had “boots on the ground” in Wuhan and China, there would have been a greater number of these warnings. I really don’t know why we are blaming China when we were not listening, we were not involved, we pulled out of an actual early warning system. I blame this administration…we pay their salaries. It isn’t the job of the Chinese to keep Americans safe…
This is an article from the LA Times (4/2/20):
By EMILY BAUMGAERTNER, JAMES RAINEY
APRIL 2, 20204:35 PM
Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat.
The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Field work ceased when the funding ran out in September, and organizations that worked on the PREDICT program laid off dozens of scientists and analysts, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a key player in the program.
EGL,
“Talking about it openly?”, I don’t think so. This was a private conversation between friends. Medical professionals of all sorts in my experience are always very careful about what they say publicly about any diseases because of the potential to scare the heck out of the worried well. You should hear what they say in private about Tinder and sexually transmitted infections.
Laura,
China doesn’t have its own money? None of those NGOs have other sources of funds? All the money previously allocated had already been spent, if so to what effect, training is forgotten when completed? Given China’s conduct Trump should have cut off all that funding day 2 of his administration, but then “Russia Collusion” was all the rage, along with the “resistance” by Obama holdovers.
Walrus: by “openly” I meant outside of a classified setting.
Anyone can retroactively make up stories of this sort. The only genuine prediction of coronavirus, although incoherent, is the Goldberg video (type project Pogo) on Bitchute. It is weird, but prescient.
If virologists (presumably there are more than your acquaintance) did have a head’s up, let’s see the memorandums, the emails, and let’s have names.
What about this piece?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/canadian-scientist-sent-deadly-viruses-to-wuhan-lab-months-before-rcmp-asked-to-investigate-1.5609582
“Canadian” scientist…
Jeshuran,
I’ve been a committee member since about 2005. You are welcome to ask about my reliability and accuracy. In terms of reliability, I think I have enough reputation to confirm that the event happened.
As for accuracy, I have the name of the virologist. I haven’t independently confirmed the date.
It you don’t understand the grading of intelligence, I suggest you ask our leader. You don’t get sources and contents unless they are public domain for reasons that are obvious..
I have already said that I would be surprised if the IC did not have this and much more information, but that does not free me from confidentiality constraints if I want to maintain relationships.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties
“Lauer’s presentation also provided a glimpse into the scope of that broader investigation. There are 399 scientists “of possible concern” to NIH, he told the advisory council, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has fingered 30% (121) of them. An additional 44 have been flagged by their own institutions. Of that pool, Lauer said, investigations into 63%, or 256 scientists, came out “positive.” Investigations into some 19% came up “negative,” he noted, whereas the status of the remaining 18% is “pending.”
Cui bono? Possibly CalPERS – California public pension system
Massive CalPERS public pension fund investment officer – Andrew Meng-, who had former ties with the Chinese military and has been using CalPERS pension funds to invest in companies which currently supply the Chinese military, recently “redeployed” $64 billion dollars in CalPERS pension assets.
(WSJ – 6/15/20)
Cui bono indeed, when following the tried and true investment rule: buy low and sell high. The China Covid stock market crash provided a superb investment possibility for this gentleman, who needs to obtain 7% returns to support public pension promises. For years, CalPERS returns were running 1-2$
If he does make this 7% book, Millennials will be stuck paying off not only their own college loans, but also paying off the lavish public pensions promised to Boomers after Democrats and their unions promised 7% returns forever, These heady Democrat and public pension promises made during the stock market go-go years in the year 2000.
Something called “The California Rule” demands no changes can ever be made to any contractual promises offered public employees, regardless of material changes of circumstances or even fraud ab initio when these lavish pension promises were originally made.
“Redeploying” $64 billion dollars in public pension funds – buy low and sell high — during the sudden Covid stock market crash………. gives one pause. And more than a little curiosity about any “Chinese” connection.
NB: coincidence of course is not causation. We all know that, of course.
Walrus, another topic doctors talk about privately are the well-known “bad doctors” who keep getting free passes mistake after mistake, and often sit on hospital quality review committees.
As well as talking among themselves about the large numbers of iatrogenic deaths, caused by the medical community itself, which have long exceeded the numbers of “corona” deaths, ginned up covid numbers or not.
Be well and thrive.
Perhaps we should talk about the Kansas Flu of 1917 that killed 50 million worldwide, or is that off the table? Or H1N1 that again originated in the US. We are one species and viral diseases affect us all. Though US biotechnology labs do seem to surround Russia.
Peter Williams…Thank you for keeping us honest. Way too much nationalism invoked to discuss an issue that has no national boundaries and “names” don’t change facts. The virus don’t care about your nation state or what name we give it to get re-elected…it rules the world!
Well, ace, here’s another theory on the origination of that pandemic that should be considered.
Unless, of course, you are working in the same Communist Party of China boiler room cranking out hasbara as Godfree Roberts. In that case, we’re probably done here.
https://www.history.com/news/china-epicenter-of-1918-flu-pandemic-historian-says
Peter Williams (a/k/a ace),
Oh, and then there is this, too. Things that make you go, hmm…
https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=58602
Story concerns illegal export by a scientist at a Canadian lab to Level 4 Biohazard lab in Wuhan (of all places! what a coincidence!) of deadly pathogens including Ebola and Henipah viruses. The kicker? She, and others at the lab under investigation, were (wait for it…) Chinese. Again with the coincidences. What’s that they say: 1st time, chance; second time, suspicion of enemy action.
Put this together with deap’s post about the CA pension fund.
Jersey,
That history channel story aired in 2014, when OMB was just a tv star and welcome in the media.
“”The leading health agency opened investigations into nearly 200 scientists with unreported foreign ties; 93% of the undisclosed funding came from China. The NIH has, so far, removed 77 grant recipients from its databases.”
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties
Good thing the media erased this story with all that coverage of peaceful protests burning down cities, China might have lost face.
Peter,
The Chinese Wuhan lab is South of Russia, so “ringing” might be geographically accurate, though a Chinese national doing research and getting a few million from the NIH that Fauci was running so that the gain of function prohabitions can be circumvented hardly counts as making the lab under US control.
I subscribe to the daily email from the International Society for Infectious Diseases. Known as Pro-Med mail. The first notice of what because known as CoVid-19 was reported on 30 December, ie. between Christmas and New Years. Every infectious disease researcher in the world, including the CDC would have read this email. I told friends before New Years and I’m just a guy interested in epidemiology. Additionally, on 12 January I bought face masks and started stocking up on food based on the daily, open source, easily discoverable Pro-Med mail. Twenty years of reading these daily reports, and this was the first time it ever motivated me to action. It was obvious what was coming. Press reports have said that Azar of HHS was warned immediately after New Year’s, but was unable to get anything moving in the White House.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-promed-crowdsourced-the-arrival-of-covid-19-and-sars/
An article about Pro-Med mail and the Pandemic.
Walrus,
I never questioned your credibility, but relaying information relying uniquely on cred, puts the info into potential disinfo category, and your basically relying on deference, not evidence.
As you know (I assume you looked at my website) I wrote about Baric’s work at Gilead on Coronavirus, and my conclusions were based on logic and public access documents, nothing more.
Let’s assume you are right, and its just the tip of iceberg, in that case – I checked Goldbergs’s Pogo/Zephyr video for dates for its initial posting, and confirmed that it went back to September 2019 earliest. This doesn’t exclude manipulation, so a technical analysis is in order.
Goldberg most likely did not exist. Photo was of supposed Goldberg were of Sheryl Sandberg’s deceased husband. Whoever “he” may have been, “his” prediction were uncannily accurate in some respect.
Rather than debating things you cannot divulge, why don’t you and the other folks here take a look at Goldberg’s video and explain to me why I should dismiss its importance out of hand, or if you find it of interest, tell me how you think it relates to your sources/info.
??
“Don’t know about other countries, but in France there was a first (known) case before China…”
The French case is most likely bogus, a result of much too high high concentration of the control, which led to cross contamination.
There is no further evidence, which would be quite easy, for an early infection in France.
Some aspects of the time line:
The WHO test was developed by a group in the Charite Berlin and was validated by international groups before 15th of January.
Therefore, the guys were already busy in December at latest.
OTOH the hope back then was that the issue could be contained in China like SARS-1.
Walrus.
no pun intended but have you entertained the letter K at the end of your name.
Walrusk has potential
Nobody knows where the 1918 Spanish flu originated. The only thing that is fairly certain is it was not in Spain. Kentucky is the most likely but we are never going to know. All type A Influenza viruses have a natural base in fresh water birds and SE Asia as a home-base where much of the reassorment and recombination takes place.
Corona viruses are found in many species type A mainly in birds and type B typically in bats (human common cold viruses include both types). The SARS family of betacorona viruses have their base in micro-bats, also in SE Asia, but we do not know the range as almost all of the sampling has occurred in China but it is probably also in the surrounding countries. It would be nice to know but then the NIH has just cut funding to Eco-health Alliance who have provided most of the data we do have about the range of these bats, the sequences, their interactions with the human populations in the area, the likely routes of transmission and the serology data. This data is showing that SARS like viruses have been causing over a million infections a year in China so it not a great surprise that we have had two flavours,so far, that went on to cause transmissible human disease.
Flu strains from the avian pool are also causing regular stuttering outbreaks on a regular basis but it is only recently that we have had the tools to watch all these natural processes take place.
Peter william wrote: “Perhaps we should talk about the Kansas Flu of 1917 that killed 50 million worldwide”
The Spanish Flu most likely originated from China. There is a good article in “War in History”.