Discovery of virus in Spanish water sample taken LAST year turns prevailing narrative of virus origin on its head – and means disease may have run rampant in UK for a year before Tories took action, with fragmented and privatised NHS unable to help recognise new pathogen
Spanish scientists at the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration say they have found traces of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in a waste-water sample dating back to March 2019.
The finding was in a single sample and the SSPH is hoping to find other samples to confirm it, but the news turns on its head the original narrative of the virus emerging in China last autumn and spreading to Europe – adding to the doubts raised by the definitely-confirmed presence of COVID-19 in France very soon afterward.
And it adds to the likelihood that the Tories allowed the virus to run rampant in the UK for up to a year before finally taking action in late March.
In December last year, newspapers reported on a raised winter-season mortality rate in the UK of around 800 additional deaths a week compared to the 5-year average, as a chart published by the Daily Mail showed:
While the rate seems to have settled at the end of the year – as the real first peak of infection burned out? – the Mail also reported at the same time that intensive care admissions for pneumonia were three times higher than normal.
Medics in Italy also reported high death rates caused by ‘atypical pneumonia’ last autumn, with many Italians believing it arrived in their country from the Netherlands.
If the virus was present in Spain in March last year or earlier, then with the high levels of travel between Spain and the UK it’s extremely improbable that it would not have rapidly arrived in the UK, even assuming it was not already here.
The latest evidence suggests that the Department of Health and Social Care and its agency Public Health England failed to recognise the presence of a new disease for months – and the starved, fragmented and privatised NHS was unable to see the big picture well enough to raise a warning flag.
The government’s failures may have cost far more than the 60,000 or so needless deaths that experts believe Boris Johnson’s delays have caused.
In the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50-100 million people, the first wave of the pandemic was far less deadly than the later waves. It may be that the raised mortality and ICU admission rates last autumn were the first or second wave of the UK epidemic – and that the massive deaths seen this year have been a second or third.
Based on the available evidence, it appears that the UK government took no steps to investigate the elevated death toll and ICU admissions last year and, in failing to investigate, it allowed a new pathogen to spread unchecked for a year or more before finally taking action – killing far more people than even the damning picture of events this year.
The only potential silver lining in this scenario is that it would mean that if the disease has been prevalent in this country for a year or more longer than thought, then far more people are likely to have been infected and the UK – at huge cost incurred by Tory cuts and incompetence – is closer to the end of the pandemic than anyone thought.
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I wouldn’t be surprised. Lots of empirical evidence about. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a bout last may (2019). Dreadful cough, and gasping for breath. No other symptoms though
Well this could explain a lot , some friends of ours came back from skiing in France in January and both of them went down with CV19 symptoms , cough for 2 weeks non stop , temperature , and breathing difficulties ,turns out that CV 19 was in that town they stayed at during January , well before announcement from China .
I’ve long thought that we’ve had Covid 19 in the population way before the beginning of the year. If this pans out then we’re in a third wave and although the death rate is still high, this might be some good news that it’s on it’s way out. This still doesn’t get our feckless government of the hook or the deferential support it’s getting from Starmer. They’ll be a reckoning at some point, maybe next years local elections, it’ll be Starmer’s first test and it doesn’t look encouraging that he’ll pass it with flying colours.
Fine and dandy if true then herd immunity will be a lot higher than we thought
Anyway back to day job
This is how you fight the right and kill two birds with one stone
All MP’s on left, members and supporters sign up to a statement put together by JVL saying in no uncertain terms that none of the Maxine Peak article was anti semitic and there is clear evidence Israel uses those disgusting techniques
Call their bluff, stand your ground at last and prepare for a challenge
Doug, well said. The Israeli Lobby, which we now know includes Starmer, must be called out for supporting racism and ethnic cleansing.
They are directly attacking our democracy by persecuting any politician who stands up to them. It is no exaggeration to say they are probably a greater danger to us than C19.
Jack, on the one hand you say that the Israeli Lobby must be called out, and THEN, in your very next sentence, you say, in effect, that any politician who DOES call them out – ie stands up to them – is persecuted for doing so. Yes, exactly, and it’s what I have been saying all along!
And the point IS of course that just about any politician – whether a councillor or an MP – who is inclined to call them out is deterred from doing so precisely because they know they will be attacked and vilified and condemned for doing so – ie persecuted, that is, as you put it.
In other words, it has nothing whatsoever to do with being weak or cowardly OR capitulation or appeasement, and EVERYTHING to do with being blackmailed into silence with the threat of being pilloried and persecuted.
Agreed?
NB And I have no doubt whatsoever that the saboteurs were monitoring EVERY single thing RLB did and said during the past few months just waiting to pounce on her the moment she gave them the slightest little reason to attack and denounce her, including Starmer.
Allan Howard “In other words, it has nothing whatsoever to do with being weak or cowardly OR capitulation or appeasement,”
Yes it has, the weak give in but the brave stay and fight and are not intimidated.
………but Maxine Peake questioned & withdrew her accusation herself, leaving RLB up the creek without a paddle. Stitch-up?
Not entirely.
Sadly lost the link now, but some clever American shrink has nailed modern society and it’s awful behaviour.
1) Victims accusations are taken as gospel. If I say you’re a thief, then you’re a thief. Innocent until proven guilty is now a dead concept.
2) Target is then isolated and ostracised heavily by multiple parties. (You’ll have seen this with Corbyn…) Anyone who doesn’t immediately call out the accused is immediately tarred with the same brush. It’s just like invasion of the body snatchers…
I can’t remember the rest of it, but there’s seven parts and they’re all accurate.
My point is, what’s the chances in the current climate that Peake shat broken glass and withdrew? Both scenarios are plausible. What is Peake’s track record prior to this?
Nvla
Pretty solid, I believe. I’d take her “retraction” with a pinch of salt. It was probably her agent!
The science on this disease is all over the place not through ineptitude but so many different pieces of evidence. Can’t blame the government for not knowing cv was here when none had identified it anywhere. Looks like lockdown now unnecessary as it’s already prevalent in the population and death rate declining to minute figures.
Oh dear, SB – you do have a way of spectacularly missing the point and pinning the Tories with their *real* sins.
“disease may have run rampant in UK for a year”
Thing is – even now, the disease hasn’t ‘run rampant’ (the key Tory myth)., given that this past year has been well down the rank of infectious disease deaths., and prior to this year, deaths have been at a low. Currently this ‘rampant’ virus isn’t even at the normal ‘epidemic’ levels as formally defined.
Why buy into this manufactured hysteria based on mass ignorance and susceptibility.
There are many viruses around all the time, and a new variant in a water sample is hardly the trigger for doing a Corporal Jones.
P.S . I note the ‘Mail’ logo peeping through the header. No wonder the data quoted is totally shot in terms of giving a realistic picture. No wonder you’d never pick up that key fact that last year was one of markedly *low* mortality.
This does rather illustrate how 24/7 media hysteria directs public behaviour.
Oftentimes what we don’t know won’t and doesn’t hurt us and ignorance IS bliss.
Not convinced – certainly our incompetent government and underfunded health service could have missed it last year, but every other country too? Pull the other one 🙂
There were no international precautions against its spread at the time so why didn’t it spread worldwide as it has this time?
The rate of rise to this year’s peak ought to have been preceded by a similar rate of rise last year – if not, why was the R rate so much lower last year?
The isolated ‘Spanish water’ test needs to be confirmed by replication elsewhere – if it hasn’t it may mean that something else is aliasing as CV19 in the test.
A test that can be ‘fooled’ could mean that the supposedly symptom-free positive tests are just false positives and that those people don’t have the immunity they hope.
False positives on a large scale would also imply that the infection rate is lower but the mortality rate is higher than we think, ie that CV19 is less easily spread but more deadly.
Body Bag Boris still won’t provide ‘PPE’ & ‘Testing’ for the low paid ‘Home Care Workers’ who work in a variety of homes, with numerous people…….a recipe for disaster!
Dear Vox Political,
Throughout 2019 the UK 1950s pension campaigners were joining in the huge anti austerity marches in large numbers, and we are within the highest risk of Covid19 death by age group alone of the 7.8m people aged between 60 and 70. WASPI is but a small number of us. WE PAID IN, YOU PAY OUT has 10,000 members. PENSION REFORM ALLIANCE has 5000 members. Others have thousands of members. GREY SWANS has nearly 1000 members that are from the other big pension campaign groups, so we share information.
Especially in London and Birmingham and Manchester, that are international travel hubs, including from Spain.
Older ladies with compromised immune systems from a variety of ailments and disabilities.
In amongst our numbers are the next pension age loss victims, the 1960s born (pension age 67 only from Labour (Blair and Brown)), starting to turn 59 in 2019, and pensioners marching with us in solidarity for the compensation we demand for all 1950s born ladies, for the theft of half a decade of our state pension.
We travelled on packed trains from all over the country. We stood together for hours in static demos. We sat in the road in London.
Police hedged us in, close by us, who are the likeliest to pass on contagion, as meet large groups of public throughout their working time.
We would, us pension campaign ladies and their husbands, through social media, have found out if Covid19 symptoms were hitting us in large numbers in 2019.
The admins of such groups, who go to ALL marches, in London, would have been the top likely catchers of this novel virus.
Spain’s sea sample might not be Covid19, but one of the many viruses within the Corona family (SARS or MERS).
The virus is not going anywhere and cannot disappear. Only once we have immunity from a vaccine does it disappear from causing symptoms and death.
Lowered pension age for 1960s born onwards, 1970s born now turning 50 for works pensions, and full compensation for 1950s ladies, would help the around 7.8m people aged between 60 and 70 to self isolate until the vaccine is in us all. Men could gain pensioner status / state pension / works pensions by deemed pensioners who are between 60 and 66 now.
Grey Swans campaigns unelected governments of Chris Williamson’s socialist movement trying to become a party (Festival of Resistance on social media), George Galloway’s Workers Party, and NATIONAL HEALTH ACTION party, of NHS doctors as MPs.
We need a NHA party government this year or next (100 per cent postal election that is the safest option according to World Health Organisation) to get a fully free press, and have a government that cares about public health, and not just maintaining wealth of the already rich.
http://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-boris-johnson-demand-election-today-vote-only-national-health-action-party-mps-who-are-nhs-doctors
Vox political is a different blog@
July 2019 Fairfax Virginia what does this sound like to you?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/respiratory-outbreak-investigated-retirement-community-54-residents-fall/story?id=64275865
6 Months before Wuhan China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/07/17/third-person-has-died-after-respiratory-illness-outbreak-greenspring-village-fairfax-officials-say/
The Data is there for all to see:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/health/outbreak-investigation-assisted-living-facility-springfield
Funnily enough, a bioweapons laboratory was shut down around that time. Less than an hour’s drive away.
And we all know Americans will drive 100 miles each way for ice cream alone…
It’s kinda ironic that the US military games team that went to Wuhan last October was also training in the area. Interesting team they had too…
Ooh, do tell please!
You couldn’t make this up! Well…they have!
The virus has already turned up in wastewater in Italy in December. Whatever way you look at this- it’s nowhere near as dangerous as they have made out since the official “outbreak”, considering we’ve been living with it for a while and only the Daily Heil seemed to notice.
Perhaps now would be a good time for establishment bitch Neil Ferguson to resign and disappear into the sunset, taking his junk computer modelling with him.