by Lieba Nesis
The shocking news arrived via Harvard Medical School on Monday June 8th that satellite images of Wuhan indicate the coronavirus was spreading as early as August 2019. The ramifications of this discovery are astounding. The perfidiousness of the Chinese government in suppressing this information for five months is more deliberate than previously thought. The new study cited by CNN reveals a significantly higher number of parked cars in Wuhan hospitals in the late summer of 2019 as compared to a year earlier. Researchers led by Boston Hospital’s chief innovation officer, Josh Brownstein, counted 171 cars in one of Wuhan’s largest hospitals, Tianyou Hospital, in October 2018 as compared to 285 vehicles in the same spot a year later-an increase of 67%. Other Wuhan hospitals showed an increase in volume of 90%.
During September and October of 2019 the explosion of cases in China was accompanied by a sharp increase in China’s Baidu search engine of terms “diarrhea” and “cough”- symptoms associated with coronavirus. China originally misled the globe into believing the virus was a zoonotic spillover from Wuhan’s Seafood market in December 2019. It only notified the world of the pandemic on December 31st and waited until January 20th to confirm human-to-human transmission. China recently acknowledged that early samples of the virus were destroyed and they were unable to identify Patient Zero. They delayed releasing the genome sequence of the virus for weeks and shut down a Shanghai laboratory for publicly sharing this information. This new data reveals that China has continued to blame others in one of the largest cover-ups in history.
Firstly, it is impossible that China only became aware of clusters at the end of December since they heavily monitor hospitals and patients as well as their own search engines. They unequivocally knew in August that hundreds of patients were coming down with unusual pneumonia-like symptoms. They hid this information for nearly half a year, allowing millions of Wuhan residents to flood the globe with this highly contagious disease. Had they locked down Wuhan in August there would have been no pandemic. In fact, a University of Southampton study found that 95% of coronavirus infections could have been prevented if China instituted containment measures three weeks earlier than late January. If implemented in late August the term coronavirus would be nonexistent. Moreover, if publicized in the summer, a vaccine would currently be available, along with accurate testing early on, completed clinical trials on effective therapeutics and proper protective equipment distributed to all. It is highly unlikely, the WHO was equally ignorant of these developments until January 20th when they declared human-to-human transmission possible.
China obfuscated the identity of Patient Zero in order to conceal their malicious malfeasance in denying the disease for months. It is rational to conclude that they purposely waited until the Chinese New Year in late January to notify the world- after millions of Wuhan residents had fled to the United States. This resulted in devastating consequences to the health and economic well being of the United States in previously unimaginable ways. During August through November they were able to hide the severity of the virus since the warmer weather masked its lethality. They only came forward the last day in December when the virus had spilled into the halls of the hospitals. The Chinese government is hiding its origination for inexplicable reasons. It is doubtful it derived from the wet markets which were undoubtedly a convenient breeding ground due to their filth and lack of oversight. Perhaps it originated in an insufficiently secured Wuhan laboratory. The possibility has even been raised that China deliberately unleashed the virus to inflict severe economic damage on the United States; ensuring nemesis President Trump’s chances for re-election would be obliterated. Some researchers have raised the possibility that the virus began outside Wuhan. However, unless the pathogen’s origins are adequately identified our society is in danger of another pandemic with consequences potentially far more devastating.
