[bamboleo]

Given that apparently the virus was outside China in early December already, is it possible that Wuhan was simply the first fast-spreading location rather than the place where the transmission happened? If the virus was in Milan’s sewers in December, it feels that it might as swell have started spreading there first.

Likewise, Italy contained the virus from May to September, then it exploded again. Nothing particularly happened in September, yet by chance it spiked.

Just speculating though, I’d like to hear others’ opinion on this thought.

[DoingIsLearning]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There is no direct air flight from Italy to Wuhan without going through Amsterdam Schipol or Beijing. There are no Shipping ports in inland Wuhan.

Do you truly believe it is a realistic scenario that a virus this infectious could traverse from northern Italy to Wuhan, Hubei, without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?

If I am to put on my tinfoil hat this is exactly the sort of disinformation I would expect from CCP propaganda in order to fight US politician memes of the "China Virus".

[dathinab]

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Assuming that Wuhan is the Orginal point of infection and there not being any previous infections spreading it to some parts of china including (or mainly) Wuhan is the actual extraordinary claim.

> There is no direct ...

Doesn't matter people travel. My sister had during that time a roommate from China from a large city without any direct flights or port or similar if that would have been Wuhan here bringing the virus to Germany before any travel restrictions started would have been well in the area of possibitly (and no joke as far as I remember it actually was Wuhan but I'm not fully sure about and no Virus was transmitted in this case it's just an example that the argument why virus transmittance is unlikely is IMHO not making much sense)

EDIT:

> without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?

1. There where other hotspots then Wuhan.

2. Detection and reporting of SARS-Cov-2 was initially not very responsive.

3. Look at how SARS-Cov-1 spread.

4. You just need a exchange student from Wuhan to Italy.

[TomSwirly]

> Do you truly believe it is a realistic scenario that a virus this infectious could traverse from northern Italy to Wuhan, Hubei, without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?

Sure - I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

A single person X becomes infected mid-week in Europe. Monday they leave for China. The next Thursday, they have a business meeting in China where they are symptomatic but have suppressed obvious symptoms with OTC cold medication - who wouldn't if you flew thousands of miles for a meeting?

A dozen people sit in a room in Wuhan with some infected person for several hours.

---

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

An "extraordinary claim" is along the lines of UFOs, ghosts and goblins.

There are hundreds of millions of international passengers a year. That an unknown infectious disease could travel from Europe to Asia undetected is hardly an "extraordinary claim".

Pending any hard evidence at all, it can only be described as a hypothesis.

[mytailorisrich]

He's not making an extraordinary claim, just a sensible possible conclusion based on established facts. In fact this is the most likely scenario (Wuhan was the first known outbreak but the virus does not originate from there)

Could we also stop dropping "CCP propaganda" everytime someone writes something others disagree with?

[bamboleo]

Codogno, the original Italian hotspot, has no airport. How do you explain that? The virus can travel without direct flights and, because you’re not infectious for a few days, you can meet plenty of people in the meanwhile without infecting them.