EVALI/VAPI and Other Evidence of Earlier SARS-CoV Timeline
The Chloroquine Wars Part CXIII
Before I dive in, I would like to mention that I am working on the first of several DMED articles after spending the past five weeks looking at the data. Since Thomas Renz has presented the first piece of the story in court, I can at least present some of what was found. The DoD is not going to like my articles. Not one bit.
Evidence of Earlier SARS-CoV Spread Continues to Pile Up
A brief look back at a subset of the reasons we should consider an earlier spread hypothesis (which I unfortunately named "earlier lab leak" even though a leak is entirely unnecessary in the explanation).
Note that I didn't say SARS-CoV-2. While I haven't had the opportunity to lay it all out, I continue to amass a large file of evidence of the Omicron hypothesis. Interestingly, the closer I get to specialization in the field, the more those I talk to consider the hypothesis interesting, plausible, and with reasonable priority. On the other hand, I've had interesting pushback—generally from people who don't give much reason besides, "That's not true." That makes the possibility even more interesting to explore. I like to approach the weird problems that nobody else is approaching. I think that's a good way to generate value, even if there are dead ends along the way. And if this is a dead end, so be it. But if there is some chance that it's right, somebody needs to be keeping a case file.
A little while ago, a friend pointed me to this preprint by Rossana Segreto asking the question, "Is SARS-CoV-2 the causative agent of EVALI cases prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?" For those unfamiliar, or simply forgot about it in the wake of the pandemonium, a strange illness was observed in 2019 that was blamed on e-cigarettes. It was initially named Vaping Associated Pulmonary Illness (VAPI), but since that sounds like a talking woodland creature you're likely to encounter in a video game, researchers came up with E-Cigarette, or Vaping Product, Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI) which sounds like any number of activities that go on at an English boarding school.
A number of people died of EVALI in 2019, and in fact, the hospital admission curve looks like an ordinary viral infection curve, which is not what you expect of an inhalation product, and is off-season for English boarding schools:
Men presented in more cases than women, just as with COVID-19, ARDS and ground glass opacities were found among the cases, and the breadth of other symptoms generally sounds like COVID-19. And the start of the rise in "lung injury syndrome" actually began around September of 2018.
From the paper: check out the CDC's statement on the disappearance of EVALI:
Uuuuummm…
Antibody Studies Show Earlier SARS-CoV Infections
Recently, antibody studies in both France (Carrat et al, 2021) and Italy (Apolone et al, 2020) have been making the rounds of discussion, providing further evidence that SARS-CoV was circulating earlier than previously thought.
Meanwhile, authorities keep pushing the increasingly tenuous zoonosis origins hypothesis despite the continued lack of an animal host, which seems amusing since we've found many animals carrying it since (Hackcock et al, 2021).
At some point, you have to start giving Distraction Theory its due consideration.
Very interesting. I remember EVALI bursting onto the scene, but haven't heard anything about it in years now. If EVALI really is/was secondary to vaping I would expect incidence to increase over time in-line with the adoption curve of vaping. Looking forward to that DMED analysis!
My wife and I are one of these early cases. Of something. We were wickedly Ill for a month starting late Nov 2019. Sickest I’ve been in my life, with ever covid symptom but loss of taste and smell. I coughed and coughed and coughed and pulled a muscle from it.