Do you remember this Covid news footage?

[Sitonyourdressmavis]

Chatting to SIL last night and we were remembering news footage we watched before the Christmas of Covid when the news was coming out of China about this virus. We clearly remember watching as a family news footage (would have been on BBC normal news not online) from China of people collapsing and fitting in the streets then being zipped up on stretchers and body bags and loaded into a black and yellow van by hazmat suited doctors/army. We all clearly remember this , it was not a film. What was this footage? Covid didn't present like that at all? We remember being really scared. SiL is a nurse and we remember her saying "what the hell is this thing"
Anyone else remember this footage?

But by that time a ‘flu’ had been circulating for a number of weeks and wasn’t responding normally to treatment so even though the WHO were informed once the new mutation had been isolated and identified it was already clear and in the news that something different was happening. See others with New York Times coverage mid December. We often get early warning that there’s a mers or a sars outbreak. I think ( and this is from memory so appreciate may be flawed ) the initial reports of this were indeed of a sars outbreak rather than a swine or avian flu outbreak. Which once definitely identified as sars cov 19 was logged with the WHO and I believe the genome pattern was then shared with the worldwide community. It would have taken weeks to get to this point.

See others with New York Times coverage mid December.

I haven't seen any articles about an unusual disease circulating in humans in mid December. Again, really interesting to see any links.

Do you mean an article written later citing this early date or published then?

They’re further up in the thread

I work as a HCP a group of us on a WA group started chatting about it early Jan. Pretty much as soon as everyone went back to work FT after x'mas / New Year following the situations in Wuham from people actually there, what the CCP were doing. It was then we realised it was serious and the whole market origin thing was weird considering Wuham is the only place China has a level 3 Biolab. I remember being called racist when suggesting to friends not in the scientific communitysomethungbfishy was going on. There were reports of American surveillance noticing crematorium running 24/7. Retrospectively people did think it entered the UK Nov Dec time, even earlier. The people I work with from the start assumed lab leak the question was accidental or deliberate. I fell in the former camp others pointed to the masses of PPE China conviently had on hand to sell to Western Countries, the economic effects. I think we already do look back on it as one of the most massive over reactions in history. My husband works in finance a lot of people made a lot of money out of Covid, not just PPE contracts, but the market tanking, those in the know got out early then rebought at ridiculously lower prices. The government scare campaign, the nudge unit were all disturbing "look at me in the eyes" etc. I know several consultants who are vunerable due to their age who completely ignored lock down. Then there is the whole died with or from Covid the average age of death of a person from Covid was higher than life expectancy. The way positive patients were discharged into care homes was disgusting and the isolation they endured terrible that along with the effect on children were the worst things our government did imo.

Are you talking about this? https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html

This isn’t an article from December 12th 2019 it simply says that’s when a cluster of people in wuhan first presented with symptoms.

Thats only known from later investigations into the start of covid it’s not when it first started being shared in the press.

Why are so many people not getting this?

No they’re not.

Theres not a single link to anything from the New York Times in the thread gallery.

Case in point of people misremembering and thinking they’ve seen things again.

This article? <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191217101029/www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/business/china-pigs-african-swine-fever.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20191217101029/www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/business/china-pigs-african-swine-fever.html

It's about an epidemic of swine flu in pigs. Although SF can infect humans, there's absolutely nothing in that article about there being high levels of any kind of respiratory illness in humans.

Nature paper analysing increases in tweets for mentions of pneumonia statistically increased over prior years began 15/12/2019 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81333-1

It’s dated the 4th Feb 2020

I think a parent with connections in China must of been informed of a growing “ virus”’ and contacted the school for reassurance.

Then later in the month you and your family watched something about a different outbreak somewhere, possibly Ebola and your brain has connected the two.

I heard about this in December. I remember where I was when hearing about it.

I was referring to those who stared the videos were non existent not the timeline as I’ve said elsewhere

I think you're getting confused. Those saying it didn't happen are referring to the videos being seen by posters in early-mid December not that they didn't happen at all.

Thanks, OP.
You’ve helped settle a family argument that there was no way I knew about Covid before January 2020.

I clear really remember in the run-up to Christmas 2019 something about an awful illness in China that none of my family recall. I know it was in the run-up to Christmas because I thought to myself when Christmas is over and the freezer is empty then I will start stocking up on a few things just in case it heads this way.

After Christmas and during January 2020, I quietly stocked my freezer, got a few tins of things plus loo rolls and generally started to prepare myself. Sometime in the prior 10 to 15 years I had watched a drama program called Survivors (where the birds spread a killing disease around the world), the whole family thought it was gripping and I thought what the hell if it actually happened and it’s never left my mind.

By the time Covid got to Italy, I felt safe enough to stay indoors for at least six weeks. My DH was horrified at what I then told him I had been up to since the January. He thought I was absolutely bonkers. But he did eventually apologise profusely because I’d done it all for him as he had a life limiting illness which if he’d caught Covid in the first year would’ve probably killed him.

I remember this kind of coverage early March before we went into lockdown, especially in China.

OP hasn’t proved that at all and do you really think that you were aware of it before the WHO? No one has yet provided any evidence that it was reported in the media before January.

Sorry to upset you, but I do absolutely believe I knew about it before Christmas.

The only thing I possibly would dispute was that I saw it on the television I think I might have read it online somewhere

But absolutely, yes, I’m absolutely convinced I knew about it before Christmas mainly because I bought extra loo rolls on my Christmas order

apologies, everyone for being a loo roll hoarder!

That is the least convincing explanation ever. Unless you were a Doctor, other medical staff or an epidemiologist or virologist working in Wuhan then I don’t buy for a minute that you knew earlier than the bloody WHO, who received the information on the 31st December. And there were no reports in the media until January though several have claimed otherwise. That you think you bought extra toilet paper is not proof.

Absolutely believing something doesn't make it true.

You may have seen reports of swine fever in China, or bubonic plague, or bird flu, or Ebola (not in China) - all of which were reported through the autumn/winter of 2019 - and acted on those. But none of those are Covid, even if that's what your preparations were eventually useful for.

The end of 2019 was also one of the Brexit deadlines, so loads of people bought extra loo roll for that.

Yes. This is a far(vastly) more likely explanation.

As much as you all like your own explanations, I’m absolutely up there with OP and I will not be changed.

I find it hilarious I’m actually choosing to engage with all of this.

I find it hilarious and staggeringly arrogant that you are so convinced that you knew about Covid before the WHO and the world’s governments. No one has yet provided any evidence that they could possibly have known earlier let alone before Christmas and I doubt that you’ll be the exception. No one’s memory is perfect. There’s no shame in that but there is in refusing to accept that your memory may be faulty rather than acknowledge that there’s not a shred of evidence that proves that you could have known before it was reported to the World Health Organization.

Yep, I remember this. So does OH. I couldn't tell you the date, but it was definitely reported on the news. People lining up on the street dropping like flies. I believe it was a queue for health care.