by v12 » Wed May 05, 2021 1:56 pm
The major wrong idea around SARS-COV-2 is, that people assume, it got viral and deadly right from the beginning. Not.
During 2020 and early 2021, we have seen coming up several strains, being more virulent and (probably) more deadly. The UK variant, the South-African variant, the Brazil variant and now potentially the India variant.
We see, Cambodia "managed" to stay Covid-19 free for nearly a year. Yeah, with all the illegal boarder crossings, the people fleeing home-quarantine, etc, so, no. Cambodia (and other "hot" countries without large scale Airco availability&use), do simply not have the natural environment to have an R0 > 1, implying incoming initial infections just die out, without getting noticed.
Now, with the UK variant (40-70% more infectious) having escaped in Cambodia, we see, the R0 gets (much) bigger than 1 and hell breaks loose (especially among people living close together). Not to say, the initial escape was among people who live in Airco bubbles, where the virus can more easily spread and it did, the first 2-3 weeks.
So, back to the OP message: Yep, I think, it's highly likely, the SARS-COV-2 variant was all around the world, much earlier than Dec 2019. We have seen indications for around Sept 2019, where China hospitals were quite busy. The latter may have been caused by a virus mutant which did have an R0 (in that area and natural habitat) of just over 1 (and with some precautions return to just below 1).
And, then the great hit came in Wuhan, where a mutant showed up with an R0 significantly higher than 1. Which mutant got spread out all over the world, simply due to natural people movements around the globe.
And then, we got the UK variant, which also made its escape around the world, now causing havoc for countries which got saved until then.
And, I would not be surprised, when the UK variant spreading in India got its subsequent variant, which is even more virulent and deadly.
So, no "sudden" outbreak, just a gradual increase in virulent characteristic and from there it becomes a pandemic (the moment a lot of deaths are involved).
Doesn't look that difficult for me.
The major wrong idea around SARS-COV-2 is, that people assume, it got viral and deadly right from the beginning. Not.
During 2020 and early 2021, we have seen coming up several strains, being more virulent and (probably) more deadly. The UK variant, the South-African variant, the Brazil variant and now potentially the India variant.
We see, Cambodia "managed" to stay Covid-19 free for nearly a year. Yeah, with all the illegal boarder crossings, the people fleeing home-quarantine, etc, so, no. Cambodia (and other "hot" countries without large scale Airco availability&use), do simply not have the natural environment to have an R0 > 1, implying incoming initial infections just die out, without getting noticed.
Now, with the UK variant (40-70% more infectious) having escaped in Cambodia, we see, the R0 gets (much) bigger than 1 and hell breaks loose (especially among people living close together). Not to say, the initial escape was among people who live in Airco bubbles, where the virus can more easily spread and it did, the first 2-3 weeks.
So, back to the OP message: Yep, I think, it's highly likely, the SARS-COV-2 variant was all around the world, much earlier than Dec 2019. We have seen indications for around Sept 2019, where China hospitals were quite busy. The latter may have been caused by a virus mutant which did have an R0 (in that area and natural habitat) of just over 1 (and with some precautions return to just below 1).
And, then the great hit came in Wuhan, where a mutant showed up with an R0 significantly higher than 1. Which mutant got spread out all over the world, simply due to natural people movements around the globe.
And then, we got the UK variant, which also made its escape around the world, now causing havoc for countries which got saved until then.
And, I would not be surprised, when the UK variant spreading in India got its subsequent variant, which is even more virulent and deadly.
So, no "sudden" outbreak, just a gradual increase in virulent characteristic and from there it becomes a pandemic (the moment a lot of deaths are involved).
Doesn't look that difficult for me.