Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[Silver Chariot]

A lot of people seem to think that is plausible, including Richard Ebright. The Washington Post even covered it sympathetically.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. A lab accident, causing an entire pandemic.
If this is true (it very likely is one of the factors at least), then this is one fucking hell of a butterfly effect.

 

[Jump]

This will end well:

If it doesn't tell you who then I'm setting the positive flag on my phone. I'm leaving some old phones in high traffic areas. This will be fun.

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

the PCR test has 20-40% fail rate? how is that possible?

SK used rapid antibody tests in massive areas. And we all know how much those sucked. Also, no joke, china is trying to sell primers for PCR and they suck a lot, in fact they sent us a sample when the antibody test fuckup, and I had to explain by phone to multiple directicives what PCR was and why no, "small viral load" doesn't excuse shit, the primer's just not actually linking to the virus. I swear seeing so many grown ass fucking hospital directives not get the basics was taxing... so if some SK official decided to buy that shit that would explain it.

 

[Otterly]

the PCR test has 20-40% fail rate? how is that possible?

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by fail rate? False positives? False negatives? both?

Mainly false negatives.
I know, it’s an insanely low accuracy isn’t it?
For those non laboratory kiwis - rtPCR and PCR in general is extremely sensitive. You can pick up single copies of sequence and if you’re good, you can use a single cell as a start point. A swab should have loads of viral material All over it. For the tests to be so shitty is unusual. Some maybes:

- nasal and throats swabs I’m hearing can be negative when a deeper sample (broncho alveolar sample or coughed up sputum) can be positive
- RNA degrades fast - the swabs get dunked in a stabiliser. Maybe that’s not working well
- maybe the primers aren’t so good?
- crap batch of polymerase? Probably not if the controls are coming up
- false positives - kits contaminated with corona sequence.
-primers cross a divergent sequence and are not picking up different strains (pretty unlikely, it’s be likely that this would be picked up because it would be clustered locally, I’m just spitballing for possible reasons WHY these tests are so crap.)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2

Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/EAjAN

the actual pdf:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2.full.pdf

Can someone archive this (apologies on phone)

lots of false negatives:https://www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-tests-false-negatives.html
Archive:

Even if you test negative for COVID-19, assume you have it, experts s…

archived 4 Apr 2020 19:27:03 UTC

archive.li

One other thing I’m seeing people say is that the Wuhan lab was putting out an ad a few months ago for a post to study a newly discovered bar virus. Nobody has given any source, but I’ve heard it a few times. Do we have a source for that? Something for our rune-literate kiwis to look for?

eodted to avoid double post: @EmuWarsVeteran what’s the deal with the primers? Are we still using the ones the Chinese told us to or are people designing their own? Using nested primers? It throws up some interesting thoughts of it’s a primer problem

 

[Intensening Rapeye]

WWIII? A total possibility, nationalism will be at another high after this. Anti-Chinese fervor, whether the left like it or not, will be rampant. I can only fear the worst.

This, combined with the fairly unavoidable collapse of Arab states is a really awesome cocktail of fuck.

 

[remiem]

Here is another article that says something similar:

Coronavirus may have been in California earlier than thought - Los An…

archived 11 Apr 2020 16:41:47 UTC

archive.li

What are long term coronavirus effects? - Los Angeles Times

archived 11 Apr 2020 05:32:30 UTC

archive.li

Althouth I am skeptical, I hope that they are right because I am afraid of this thing.

I mean how much would it suck for kids, to grow up with parent(s) who are in early phases of organ failure because of this shit. A lot of people apparently don't just walk away from it. I mean it would suck to live the rest of your (shorter) life with crappy lungs, a weak heart, on dialysis or a gimp liver, if you are in your late '30s, 40's or '50's.

But not being able to do stuff because Mom or Dad isn't feeling well, will will significantly add to this generation's bucket of suck. Or having no money due to being on disability because parent(s) are too gimp to work? Another layer of suck.

I am hoping that this "California Immunity" thing is true. They will find out soon enough. However I am skeptical because why weren't people dropping like flies early on, like they did in New York or Italy?

If this is true then it's entirely possible we're currently in the deadly second wave that has been predicted/concerned about. The first being far more mild for even more people which gave it time to get worse before it gets better.

 

[Silver Chariot]

- RNA degrades fast - the swabs get dunked in a stabiliser. Maybe that’s not working well

That's probably the main reason Abbott Labs is developing their rapid test. At least that will eliminate some of the degradation issues. Now the only glaring problem I can see is if the machine works with good sensitivity and specificity AND if the samples obtained from people are any good.

This, combined with the fairly unavoidable collapse of Arab states is a really awesome cocktail of fuck.

Yet another war in the desert. The ride never ends.

 

[Non-Expert!]

A lot of people seem to think that is plausible, including Richard Ebright. The Washington Post even covered it sympathetically.

How did covid-19 begin? Its initial origin story is shaky. - The Wash…

archived 4 Apr 2020 08:08:04 UTC

archive.vn

For zoonotic diseases to spread to humans, basically you get a guy who has a weakened immune system to begin with, say, he has influenza or a much more mild corona virus.

An infected bird craps in his cucumber soup, or he slaughters a bat and doesn't cook the meat thoroughly, or he wanders into a cave or building where some infected bats hang out, and upsets bat-shit dust ...

Given that he has some variety of Corona-cold, he inhales bat-flu infested guano dust. It reshuffles in his body and binds to the existing human strain of infection he has.

Now, bat flu or bird flu can bind to human receptors and invade. So Patient 0 goes home to have dinner with his family, infects them with bat-guano fever, but they don't immediately drop dead. Or they don't drop dead at all. Instead they head for the Wuhan market and sneeze in their hands as they select the highest quality lettuce, celery and apples, which other people will rinse off and eat raw. They touch surfaces, shedding virus fucking everywhere. No soap available in the toilet. Fuck it, they take the bus home after crapping in a public loo.

Then Kab-bam, in November-December, at the beginning of flu season, suddenly people are really fucking sick, and it takes a little time before health officials catch on ...

They have been discussing this stuff for the past 30 years. And predicting that the next plague will come out of China. None of this is new.

A general argument for why this is unlikely to be lab-made, is that viruses erupt spontaneously in the human population, through this exact animal-human jump. And this one doesn't have an effective enough kill rate to be engineered for population control or whatever.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Mainly false negatives.
I know, it’s an insanely low accuracy isn’t it?
For those non laboratory kiwis - rtPCR and PCR in general is extremely sensitive. You can pick up single copies of sequence and if you’re good, you can use a single cell as a start point. A swab should have loads of viral material All over it. For the tests to be so shitty is unusual. Some maybes:

- nasal and throats swabs I’m hearing can be negative when a deeper sample (broncho alveolar sample or coughed up sputum) can be positive
- RNA degrades fast - the swabs get dunked in a stabiliser. Maybe that’s not working well
- maybe the primers aren’t so good?
- crap batch of polymerase? Probably not if the controls are coming up
- false positives - kits contaminated with corona sequence.
-primers cross a divergent sequence and are not picking up different strains (pretty unlikely, it’s be likely that this would be picked up because it would be clustered locally, I’m just spitballing for possible reasons WHY these tests are so crap.)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2

Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/EAjAN

the actual pdf:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2.full.pdf

Can someone archive this (apologies on phone)

lots of false negatives:https://www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-tests-false-negatives.html
Archive:

Even if you test negative for COVID-19, assume you have it, experts s…

archived 4 Apr 2020 19:27:03 UTC

archive.li

One other thing I’m seeing people say is that the Wuhan lab was putting out an ad a few months ago for a post to study a newly discovered bar virus. Nobody has given any source, but I’ve heard it a few times. Do we have a source for that? Something for our rune-literate kiwis to look for?

eodted to avoid double post: @EmuWarsVeteran what’s the deal with the primers? Are we still using the ones the Chinese told us to or are people designing their own? Using nested primers? It throws up some interesting thoughts of it’s a primer problem

Laowhy86 provided the receipts for that. The postings were on the labs own web site and where still up at the time his video went live.

 

[LazyLizard]

This, combined with the fairly unavoidable collapse of Arab states is a really awesome cocktail of fuck.

wonder if ISIS is going to surge during this, in times of crisis people always turn to religion so they might just catch a second wind and get big again.

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

Mainly false negatives.
I know, it’s an insanely low accuracy isn’t it?
For those non laboratory kiwis - rtPCR and PCR in general is extremely sensitive. You can pick up single copies of sequence and if you’re good, you can use a single cell as a start point. A swab should have loads of viral material All over it. For the tests to be so shitty is unusual. Some maybes:

- nasal and throats swabs I’m hearing can be negative when a deeper sample (broncho alveolar sample or coughed up sputum) can be positive
- RNA degrades fast - the swabs get dunked in a stabiliser. Maybe that’s not working well
- maybe the primers aren’t so good?
- crap batch of polymerase? Probably not if the controls are coming up
- false positives - kits contaminated with corona sequence.
-primers cross a divergent sequence and are not picking up different strains (pretty unlikely, it’s be likely that this would be picked up because it would be clustered locally, I’m just spitballing for possible reasons WHY these tests are so crap.)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2

Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/EAjAN

the actual pdf:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2.full.pdf

Can someone archive this (apologies on phone)

lots of false negatives:https://www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-tests-false-negatives.html
Archive:

Even if you test negative for COVID-19, assume you have it, experts s…

archived 4 Apr 2020 19:27:03 UTC

archive.li

One other thing I’m seeing people say is that the Wuhan lab was putting out an ad a few months ago for a post to study a newly discovered bar virus. Nobody has given any source, but I’ve heard it a few times. Do we have a source for that? Something for our rune-literate kiwis to look for?

eodted to avoid double post: @EmuWarsVeteran what’s the deal with the primers? Are we still using the ones the Chinese told us to or are people designing their own? Using nested primers? It throws up some interesting thoughts of it’s a primer problem

I don't really know what the issue is. The whole story from my point of view is as follows:
>chinks send spain whatever many antibody tests that turn out to be shit.
>On the same package they send a "free sample" of primers for PCR
>a spanish lab tests them.
>The PCRs done with them suck cock.
>Que directives and journos freaking the fuck out and claiming PCR has an extremely high rate of false negatives ermahgerd we'reallgunna die.
>Que chinks claiming it's normal for PCRs if viral load is small to give a fake negative
>union asks me 'cause I talked them about PCRs in the past
>I explain to union that infact a POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION is a REACTION by which a POLYMERASE, POLIMERIZES the fucking virus to amplify it.
>After some repetitions they get it.
>Que them linking me to whoever they tried and failed to explain it to. Which I swear was at least 20 hospital and province level directives
>Que me having to explain it again. After the third time I made a fucking voice recording and everything.
>What's even worse, due to Cadiz having a strong biotechnological industry both for food production, farmaceuticals and sea ecology, que messages of "I asked (insert family member or friend here) about it and he says you're right" almost every fucking time.

So yeah I have no fucking clue what the chinks did. My best guess is they fucked the polymerase so it didn't even detect the DNA it was meant to clone. Either that or they literally sent us the wrong damned primer. Either way you can imagine how many times I had to say "it came from china what did you expect?" Just to keep myself from going insane.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

These leftists and others radicals and SJWs won't sing the same song if these released convicts due to corona-chan concerns was closer to their own backyards.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/it_has_started_convict_let_out_on_coronavirus_concerns_arrested_for_assault_and_robbery.html

http://archive.vn/x6zjI

April 11, 2020
It has started: Convict let out on coronavirus concerns arrested for assault and robbery
By Monica Showalter
The nation's thugs rejoiced when the coronavirus plague hit the U.S., giving anti-incarceration social justice warriors just the push they needed to find a reason to let them out of their prisons.
Lefty city and state leaders ensured that it happened, and predictable as sunrise, the released thugs went back to doing what got them incarcerated in the first place.
According to the New York Post:

A Bronx man released from prison by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last month amid the spread of the coronavirus has been charged with beating and robbing a 62-year-old man[.] ...
Daniel Vargas, 29, was being held on $50,000 bail on robbery, grand larceny and assault charges after allegedly approaching the elderly victim on Valentine Avenue in the Bronx shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday, according to a criminal complaint.
Vargas allegedly demanded $80 that the man, who was leaving a local bodega with a cane and began punching and kicking him when he refused.
"Give me your money," he allegedly told the man.
Vargas allegedly then slugged the victim in his body, pushed him against a wall and shoved him to the ground, the complaint said.

Sounds like just the violent brute you'd want to let out of jail to keep him safe and protected from the coronavirus. As if a guy like that would socially distance and wash his hands as health officials direct, and use a mask — for anything other than a crime tool to protect against identification. Only to a leftist would any of this make sense. This one got let out on March 28 and took less than two weeks to get back to business, and those are only the violent crimes we know about. He's been out for several days, and we can guess. What he did may not have even been reported as crimes, given that cops are no longer making a lot of arrests.
It's a textbook example of social justice warrior leftists taking the coronavirus crisis and using it to advance their long-held agendas.

 

[Non-Expert!]

wonder if ISIS is going to surge during this, in times of crisis people always turn to religion so they might just catch a second wind and get big again.

The only "second wind" ISIS will see is the blast coming from US drone attacks. You can be a socially distanced member of the military and still perform some ninja-style Nintendo moves.

Most Muslims do not want to live under ISIS. They consider them a plague.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

the PCR test has 20-40% fail rate? how is that possible?

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by fail rate? False positives? False negatives? both?

From what I was reading a few days ago, and medical kiwis please correct me if I'm wrong, the type of test used in earlier corona screenings is VERY picky. You have to use a certain swab, be very careful not to cross infect, ece. This type of test is not typically used on colds, and is usually processed in small numbers. So when Corona hit, there was a massive shortage of the special type of swab, and more generic swabs led to inaccurate results. This resulted in many positive tests showing up as negatives, so there's your false negatives.

For the false positives, pieces of the coronavirus can be found in the breath and nasal cavities of patients weeks after the disease ahs passed. These remains cant infect others as far as we know, but they CAN set off the very picky test. So there's your false positives and your "reinfections" that cant be explained.

 

[Not Really Here]

Mainly false negatives.
I know, it’s an insanely low accuracy isn’t it?
For those non laboratory kiwis - rtPCR and PCR in general is extremely sensitive. You can pick up single copies of sequence and if you’re good, you can use a single cell as a start point. A swab should have loads of viral material All over it. For the tests to be so shitty is unusual. Some maybes:

- nasal and throats swabs I’m hearing can be negative when a deeper sample (broncho alveolar sample or coughed up sputum) can be positive
- RNA degrades fast - the swabs get dunked in a stabiliser. Maybe that’s not working well
- maybe the primers aren’t so good?
- crap batch of polymerase? Probably not if the controls are coming up
- false positives - kits contaminated with corona sequence.
-primers cross a divergent sequence and are not picking up different strains (pretty unlikely, it’s be likely that this would be picked up because it would be clustered locally, I’m just spitballing for possible reasons WHY these tests are so crap.)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2

Archive of abstract: https://archive.li/EAjAN

the actual pdf:https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493v2.full.pdf

Can someone archive this (apologies on phone)

lots of false negatives:https://www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-tests-false-negatives.html
Archive:

Even if you test negative for COVID-19, assume you have it, experts s…

archived 4 Apr 2020 19:27:03 UTC

archive.li

One other thing I’m seeing people say is that the Wuhan lab was putting out an ad a few months ago for a post to study a newly discovered bar virus. Nobody has given any source, but I’ve heard it a few times. Do we have a source for that? Something for our rune-literate kiwis to look for?

eodted to avoid double post: @EmuWarsVeteran what’s the deal with the primers? Are we still using the ones the Chinese told us to or are people designing their own? Using nested primers? It throws up some interesting thoughts of it’s a primer problem

Archive of the medrx pdf attached.

 

[Silver Chariot]

From what I was reading a few days ago, and medical kiwis please correct me if I'm wrong, the type of test used in earlier corona screenings is VERY picky. You have to use a certain swab, be very careful not to cross infect, ece. This type of test is not typically used on colds, and is usually processed in small numbers. So when Corona hit, there was a massive shortage of the special type of swab, and more generic swabs led to inaccurate results. This resulted in many positive tests showing up as negatives, so there's your false negatives.

For the false positives, pieces of the coronavirus can be found in the breath and nasal cavities of patients weeks after the disease ahs passed. These remains cant infect others as far as we know, but they CAN set off the very picky test. So there's your false positives and your "reinfections" that cant be explained.

I've a mind to believe you because it all sounds very plausible, but do you have the links to what you were reading?

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. A lab accident, causing an entire pandemic.
If this is true (it very likely is one of the factors at least), then this is one fucking hell of a butterfly effect.

A lab accident that Ebright predicted would happen in 2017 because totalitarian states can't do biosafety

Inside the Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens

Maximum-security biolab is part of plan to build network of BSL-4 facilities across China.

web.archive.org

But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says.

Yuan says that he has worked to address this issue with staff. “We tell them the most important thing is that they report what they have or haven’t done,” he says. And the lab’s international collaborations will increase openness. “Transparency is the basis of the lab,” he adds.

That last paragraph is particularly ironic. International connections meant Chinese researchers getting samples from Canada in August 2019

Questions Surround Canadian Shipment of Deadly Viruses to China

The same Winnipeg lab that sent Ebola and Henipah viruses to Beijing recently removed a number of researchers for an administrative issue.

web.archive.org

Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory shipped Ebola and Henipah viruses to Beijing on March 31, raising suspicions from experts in biochemical warfare, who say they think China may use the pathogens to develop offensive biological agents.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report that the incident has not introduced any known risk to public health, according to the Winnipeg Free Press.

The same lab is the focus of an ongoing investigation by the RCMP. The inquiry began following the recent dismissal of the head of the National Microbiology Laboratory’s (NML) Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies section in the Special Pathogens Program, virologist Xiangguo Qiu. Qiu, her colleague and husband Keding Cheng, and a number of her international students lost security clearance to their lab on July 5.

In 2018, Govenor General Julie Payette presented Qiu with an innovation award for her helping to lead the development of the Ebola vaccine ZMapp, according to the Winnipeg Free Press. There are no reports as to whether she was involved in the March shipment.

and eventually getting kicked out for espionage in October 2019

Canadian government scientist under investigation trained staff at Level 4 lab in China | CBC News

A Canadian government scientist at the National Microbiology Lab made at least five trips to China in 2017-18, including one to train scientists and technicians at China’s newly certified Level 4 lab, according to travel documents obtained by CBC News.

web.archive.org

A Canadian government scientist at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg made at least five trips to China in 2017-18, including one to train scientists and technicians at China's newly certified Level 4 lab, which does research with the most deadly pathogens, according to travel documents obtained by CBC News.

Xiangguo Qiu — who was escorted out of the Winnipeg lab in July amid an RCMP investigation into what's being described by Public Health Agency of Canada as a possible "policy breach" — was invited to go to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences twice a year for two years, for up to two weeks each time.

"This will be third-party funded, and therefore no cost to [the Public Health Agency of Canada]," say the documents, obtained through access to information requests. The identity of the third-party was redacted.

During a Sept. 19-30, 2017, trip, she also met with collaborators in Beijing, the documents say, but their names have also been blacked out.

Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and her students from China were removed on July 5 from Canada's only Level 4 lab — one equipped to work with the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola. Security access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked, sources who work at the lab previously told CBC News.

When the shit hit the fan and it leaked it didn't stop them trying to disappear anyone who tried to raise the alarm. Yuan's idea that 'international cooperation' would 'increase openness' was self-serving bullshit. International cooperation meant they had a lab full of potential bioweapons. It didn't mean that people could point out that the lab was leaking so the leaks could be fixed.

 

[Silver Chariot]

A lab accident that Ebright predicted would happen in 2017 because totalitarian states can't do biosafety

The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Multiple times? Fucking hell
At some point safety has to supercede culture, but this is China we're talking about...

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

From what I was reading a few days ago, and medical kiwis please correct me if I'm wrong, the type of test used in earlier corona screenings is VERY picky. You have to use a certain swab, be very careful not to cross infect, ece. This type of test is not typically used on colds, and is usually processed in small numbers. So when Corona hit, there was a massive shortage of the special type of swab, and more generic swabs led to inaccurate results. This resulted in many positive tests showing up as negatives, so there's your false negatives.

For the false positives, pieces of the coronavirus can be found in the breath and nasal cavities of patients weeks after the disease ahs passed. These remains cant infect others as far as we know, but they CAN set off the very picky test. So there's your false positives and your "reinfections" that cant be explained.

That's... dependant on area. What you described is rapid tests, also known as antibody tests. But on most areas the early tests where PCRs. Which are way more reliable and not picky (though of course cross contamination and sampme issues can be a bitch).

Issue is mostly lack of testing. As for reinfection, it's probably only on antibody tests outside of nations that bought the tests from china. Because china. Seriously I have no idea how they managed to fuck a PCR up. It's actually hard to fuck it up. But they found a way that's for damned sure.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

This is why I think it's connected to the lab in Wuhan. Horseshoe bats are known SARS-like coronavirus reservoirs that have been studied for awhile now.

I think it would be way too much of a crazy coincidence for the initial epicenter to be right down the street from a lab known to study coronaviruses in horseshoe bats. I guess anything is possible, but it's hard not to make the connection. This is why I lean towards "lab accident" being behind this.

I'm still gonna call it Bat Soup Flu though.

ETA: If it was from something sold at the market though it could have been an intermediate host, like how with OG SARS it went from bats to civets to humans. There was some talk of it maybe being pangolins with this one, which are popular in Chinese medicine.

It could be even simpler, bat shits/pisses on table, table is not adequately cleaned (because china), person touches table before eating. Bam, there's your infection.

My autistic prediction: China was studying coronavirus in the Wuhan lab, likely either trying to develop a vaccine against it, medication against it, or just trying to understand how Corona and SARS swap DNA, when it accidentally made its way out with an infected employee. We are seeing that even with all precautions in place this fucker spreads EVERYWHERE. The Chinese researchers may have had no idea just how infectious BatAIDS was until the alarm was raised as the first deaths began to occur.

If this is true then it's entirely possible we're currently in the deadly second wave that has been predicted/concerned about. The first being far more mild for even more people which gave it time to get worse before it gets better.

I've thought this ever since the clear image of Corona symptoms presented itself in mid march. It's just WAY too similar to the flu-thats-not-a-flu from the fall, the only difference being the more severe symptoms. All the mild and moderate symptoms as well as the pneumonia cases are lining up with what we were already seeing, nobody cared to find out what was causing it until china finally panicked.

I think, much like the Spanish flu, many doctors and governments paid the disease no mind until it began to overflow hospitals and kill way above the static noise of day to day life, at which point it was too late to contain its spread. It seems nobody was trying to figure out what was causing the heavy flu season until WuHan started locking down. If they had, we would have known about a new Coronavirus a month before China acknowledged its existence.

I've a mind to believe you because it all sounds very plausible, but do you have the links to what you were reading?

Otterly beat me to it earlier on this page. I can try to find what I was reading earlier, but this thread is a cluster.

That's... dependant on area. What you described is rapid tests, also known as antibody tests. But on most areas the early tests where PCRs. Which are way more reliable and not picky (though of course cross contamination and sampme issues can be a bitch).

Issue is mostly lack of testing. As for reinfection, it's probably only on antibody tests outside of nations that bought the tests from china. Because china. Seriously I have no idea how they managed to fuck a PCR up. It's actually hard to fuck it up. But they found a way that's for damned sure.

Mainly I'm talking mainly about the first wave of South Korean testing. The initial round had hilariously high false results, both positive and negative. IIRC the PCR tests were used in the second wave of testing, but were still in short supply in Korea, so the earlier testing method was still used for weeks afterwards, and may still be used in some areas.