General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNo, You Did Not Get COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019
The piece has spread widely. An accompanying web story posted to the TV stations website has been shared more than 58,300 times, and has also been picked up by SFGate. The theory is appealing to some, particularly those who had respiratory illnesses in late 2019 that they now believe couldve been COVID-19. In their minds, that might mean they have some immunity to the virusand if a large portion of Americans have some immunity, we can begin our move out of lockdown. But that theory has no scientific basis, and it spreads dangerous misinformation.
Lets start with the facts. I reached out to Stanford Medicine to try to understand the goals of its antibody test, and how it relates to Hansons fall 2019 theory. The short answer on the latter is that it doesnt. Our research does not suggest that the virus was here that early, says Lisa Kim of Stanfords media relations team.
Check out the source of the California story:
So whats really behind this theory? It might be worth considering the source. KSBWs piece begins by mentioning Stanford Medicines research, then quotes Victor Davis Hanson, a Stanford-affiliated source; the piece reads as if Hanson is one of these aforementioned Stanford Medicine researchers. But Hanson is a military historian, not a doctor or scientist; he is affiliated with Stanfords Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank.* (I reached out to Hanson for comment, but he has not responded; we will update this article if he does.) The piece makes no effort to clarify what the Hoover Institution is, and it delves into Hansons theory as a prelude to a brief explanation of Stanford Medicines study. Hansons recent work, published in National Review, suggests he is eager to reopen the American economy. It would be quite convenient, then, to claim that the virus has already torn through the U.S. and granted us immunity. (In that article, Hanson also claims that much of the virus modeling is nearly worthless and refers to it as science, in scare quotes.)
https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html
A great person to follow on Twitter for this ongoing info is Trevor Bedford
Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)womanofthehills
(8,761 posts)from a conservative think tank. Everyone I know who had the flu last year truly believes they had Covid-19. Most just can't wait to take an antibody test.
Wounded Bear
(58,706 posts)apparently there was something going around last fall that was pretty bad. I don't know, I didn't get it. Always seems to be RW Trump humpers spewing that tale. Sounds like another lame attempt to shift blame for Trump's incompetence somewhere else.
Mariana
(14,860 posts)but apparently, it wasn't bad enough to land a whole bunch of people in the hospital on ventilators, with an unusual and deadly form of viral pneumonia.
Remember how quickly the public health authorities picked up on the vaping illness when that happened? They were sounding the alarm on that when there were only a handful of cases, and before anyone died from it. They are really on the ball, yet we're supposed to believe they totally missed a widespread epidemic of a brand-new deadly viral disease. I just doesn't make sense.
babylonsister
(171,090 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)My spouse and I got it in mid-December, and the symptoms were not at all like COVID-19. Started as a head cold, went briefly to the nose and then straight to the chest. No fever ever, but the worst damn cough Id ever had. More than a month of constant, uncontrollable wet coughing, chucking up gobs of sputum (sorry for that image, folks). But never felt sick).
Tons of people had it. And then it just went away. But Im sure it had zero to do with corona virus.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)still even lingered a bit after that in a milder form. I would just get so exhausted from coughing so hard and sometimes I would just choke on it and get sick because I couldn't get anything up out of my lungs. It just wiped me out.
And I had a flu shot. I'm not sure what this was.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)games in China in October 2019 brought it back. Misinformation will be our undoing.