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The Coronavirus Outbreak Didn’t Start In August
The tale of conspiracies and some problematic science
Note: this blog has been updated after an email from the authors clarifying some points. The study did not use the national search trends from Baidu, it used the searches from Wuhan only. Similarly, they did not standardize by time period, but since most of the photos were within a 3-hour time stamp they felt that this was unnecessary. The study is being amended to reflect these points.
One question that’s been ongoing throughout the entire coronavirus pandemic has been very simple but somewhat difficult to answer — how did this all start? The blame has largely fallen on the Wuhan live food market, but increasingly people are asking whether the outbreak might have started somewhere else, perhaps even earlier than reported.
And this week stories have emerged from media around the world saying that not only did the virus start earlier than we previously thought, it may have been around as early as August 2019. According to Harvard academics, the reports say, something was happening in China months before the official reports recognized COVID-19 as an issue…
