In a recent article I asked why U.S. intelligence officials were following the coronavirus outbreak in China in November 2019 when there is no evidence anyone in China was aware of or concerned about the virus at that point. I noted that no evidence had been produced to explain how they spotted it and why they were concerned. Combined with a lack of cooperation with investigations into Covid origins and multiple signs of a cover-up, this unexplained early awareness of the virus is not just mysterious but suspicious.
Since publishing that piece I have been reminded about a report from Harvard University produced in June 2020 (apparently with intelligence community involvement) that appeared alongside a companion news report for ABC News and showed satellite images from Wuhan in the autumn of 2019 along with some data analysis, indicating increased hospital activity and other possible signals of disease outbreak.
The clear implication of the Harvard study is that these are the data (or some of them) that the intelligence community relied on in November 2019 to identify the outbreak and raise the alarm. The news report states the study used “techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies” and was “similar to work done by analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency”. The Pentagon’s Chief Spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, told ABC News he had “nothing to add” to the Harvard study, implying endorsement.
It’s therefore worth asking whether the data in the study can account for the U.S. intelligence community’s early awareness and alarm. Let’s take a look.
Here are the first two figures from the report.
The top chart (a) shows hospital traffic estimates from satellite images for six hospitals in Wuhan and an orange trend line that shows a smoothed overall figure. There is clearly a rising trend of overall hospital activity during October and November that wasn’t present the previous year (note that the middle vertical dashed line is December 1st and the third vertical dashed line is January 23rd). So we seem to have here a signal of modestly increased hospital activity which may be indicative of an outbreak. However, on closer inspection, the fainter hospital-specific data points reveal that this extra activity was focused in two hospitals in particular: Hubei Women and Children and Wuhan Tianyou. The data points are also erratic, spiking for one data point in early November but dropping sharply again later in November before spiking again in December. It’s fair to say this is not the clearest of signals. But perhaps the other data will be clearer.
The second chart (b) shows ‘Baidu’ search queries – which capture the frequency of internet and mobile phone searches – for ‘cough’ and ‘diarrhoea’ in Wuhan. The authors rightly draw attention to a signal of elevated searches for ‘diarrhoea’ after August (the first vertical dashed line). However, they also claim there is a signal for ‘cough’, but as can be seen in the chart, compared to the previous year no such elevated level of searches occurs prior to December. There is then a modest spike in searches for ‘cough’ during December, but even then it is well below the level of the previous year. In other words, there is no indication from these data of an outbreak of a coughing disease in Wuhan during autumn 2019, i.e., there is no Covid signal.
Noting the rise in ‘diarrhoea’ searches, the Harvard researchers suggest this means we should pay more attention to unusual symptoms in identifying a Covid outbreak. A more convincing conclusion, though, is that there was an outbreak of an unrelated diarrhoea bug during late summer and autumn in Wuhan. Such an outbreak may be sufficient to explain the increased hospital traffic at the time, particularly at the children’s hospital – which would also be less likely to be explained by a Covid outbreak. At one hospital the traffic was shown to be particularly elevated in October (see below), which is way too early for the ‘cough’ signal, but fits with when diarrhoea searches were elevated.
The third chart (c) from the report, above, shows the proportion of influenza-like illness admissions in two Wuhan hospitals. It again notably reveals a lack of admissions for influenza-like illness during October and November (prior to the middle vertical dashed line). There is then a spike in December, which matches the spike in ‘cough’ searches. But, importantly, nothing in November when U.S. intelligence analysts claim to have spotted the Covid outbreak. This means, whatever was causing the elevated hospital traffic at some Wuhan hospitals in September, October and November 2019, it wasn’t an influenza-like illness such as COVID-19.
On these data, then, it’s not at all clear how U.S. intelligence analysts could have seen a signal of a ‘cataclysmic‘ outbreak of a respiratory virus in Wuhan in mid-November 2019 that they felt compelled to warn their Government and allies about. There is no sign of a respiratory virus outbreak here – searches for ‘cough’ remained low in November and admissions for influenza-like illness were normal.
In a way, this lack of signal from Covid is, we should note, unexpected. After all, we know from other sources that the virus likely was already spreading both in Wuhan and more widely by November 2019, so we might have expected there to have been some signal for U.S. intelligence to have picked up on. On the other hand, we also know that this early spread was undetected everywhere at the time and did not cause large waves of hospitalisations and deaths. Since no country including China appears to have spotted the virus spreading within its own borders during November 2019, the question of how U.S. intelligence spotted it in Wuhan (and only in Wuhan) remains salient.
Thus this Harvard report, intended to show how U.S. intelligence analysts spotted the virus in November 2019 in China even though China itself had not noticed it yet, has ended up inadvertently revealing there was no signal of a respiratory viral outbreak in Wuhan at that time and thus no way that U.S. intelligence analysts could have spotted one.
Naturally, this does nothing to diminish the growing suspicions about how U.S. intelligence came to be following the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, and only Wuhan, at a time when no one else, including the Chinese, were even aware of its existence.
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A policy which Mao himself would purr about.
this contravenes our Magna Carta, which remains our most fundamental statute law, and which cannot be derogated.
The Great Global Warming Swindle – Full Documentary HD
https://rumble.com/vvvn6u-the-great-global-warming-swindle-full-documentary-hd.html
I first watched this in 2007. I remember Piers Corbyn appearing on it, more than anyone else, even though only he appears for a very short amount of time.
Yellow Boards By The Road …. for the love of humanity … green power = black death
Monday 12th September 3pm to 4pm TOMORROW
Yellow Boards
Junction A332 Windsor Rd &
A329 London Road
Ascot SL5 8FE
Wednesday 14th September 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A4 Bath Road &
Pound Lane Sonning
Wokingham RG4 6TB
Thursday 15th September 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction B3408 London Road &
Wokingham Road
Bracknell RG42 4FH
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
So, once again, rich people in their fat cars would be allowed to drive there, because they’re the ones who will be able to afford permits, but the little people would be banned because it’ll be an extra expense. That’s people trying to get to their jobs and visiting families and friends and all the myriad reasons why people drive their cars. In effect, Oxford Council will be doing a sort of Net Zero lockdown by default. I urge all Oxford people to rise up and challenge this totalitarian nonsense.
In this case it doesn’t look like they’re interested in issuing any permits, though they have grudgingly said that for residents trapped inside the inaccessible zone, they might consider allowing 100 ‘passes’ a year (not explaining what these people are supposed to do for the other 265 days). Vans appear to be exempt, though this will probably change when local workers all buy small vans to travel to work.
It’s likely local government, like with most of these schemes, will have some sort of exemption, though the wealthiest mainly live within easy cycling distance in North Oxford or city centre apartments. These can virtuously cycle their battery assisted bikes into work (or to shop in the city with their child death-buckets attached, which is an alarmingly common sight) if they don’t work from home. Otherwise, if they currently believe they’ll be able to freely take their Teslas outside the city, they might have a shock when they encounter the newly created gridlock in residential areas and the two main roads leading north to the A34. To be fair, the first the majority of people will even know about this is when they receive a fine through the post.
Somebody voted in these council numpties. An old Chinese proverb says “Be careful what you wish for”
This achieves nothing toward reduction of emissions. With roads closed to certain users, people will simply do what they’ve always done when roads are closed: detour around them, increasing the total mileage driven and hence exhaust emissions!
At least we are now seeing what the greem movement is all about: eco fascism. They want other people (never themselves) driven back to the stoneage to appease their false eco-idols. They see other people (not themselves) as the sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered on the altar of eco-extremism. These crazed lunatics must not be allowed to get away with it.
It’s great to see an article drawing attention to the self-immolation of a once great city. My partner (who lives there and will no longer have a job if the proposed ‘bus gates’ go ahead) attended one of the phoney ‘consultation’ meetings. She described the demeanour of councillors as one of condescending boredom, and total disinterest in the concerns of people whose lives will be ruined by this scheme.
The article doesn’t go much into details about the scheme, and how it will affect people far outside Oxford city. Because of a criss-crossing network of canals and rivers, the only crossing point from one side of Oxford to the other is via what is effectively a tiny central ring road. This scheme will close off this ring road and stop drivers being able to cross from one point of the city to another. Instead they’ll be forced to drive several miles out to the A34 ‘ring road’, then back in again via one of the city’s already congested entry points. The council like to imagine people make these journeys for fun, rather than necessity, and that people share their own evidently luxurious position of being able to choose when and how they travel for work or other commitments.
Barring the obvious contradictions this raises if the council want to present it as in any way ‘green’, the resultant displacement of traffic will cause gridlock everywhere, impacting bus journey times and increasing danger for cyclists in residential areas.
More significantly, the A34 isn’t a ‘ring road’ as the council like to imagine – it’s a major arterial route from the north to the south of the country. Being a dual carriageway, it’s already completely unfit for this purpose, and already suffers a serious accident in Oxfordshire every few days. Adding local traffic to it will tip it over the edge. Southbound A34 congestion already backs up on to the M40 sometimes, causing tailbacks onto the motorway and leaving a stationary lane of traffic onto the sliproad vulnerable to accidents.
With A34 congestion routine, this will become the norm, and any journey through this part of the country, from North to South, or from the West to the South East will become a nightmare for everybody. Everyone travelling this way will pay for the narcissistic vanity of a bunch of pompous strutting Oxford councillors, in misery and inconvenience. The economic cost of massive delays to commercial and freight traffic alone will be enormous.