We identified this virus at some point in January, but it’s irrational to think it wasn’t already here in December, if not November. It simply had to have been traveling the world before anyone specifically identified it.

And since it came out of China, who has already illustrated it had little incentive to warn anyone, it may never be entirely clear exactly when the cat was let out of the proverbial bag.

Obviously, we couldn’t immediately test for it, because we had to learn more about it before we could conceive of and mass produce an adequate test to detect it in people.

This makes me wonder how many people were infected before we had adequate testing? How many of those people thought they had the flu, and how many were completely asymptomatic and will never know they had it?

Same with people we test now who get a negative result. How many of those people already had it and have since developed immunity? How many of them have gotten it since they were tested?

A test is just a snapshot in time. It doesn’t tell anyone if you had it before or if you’ll get it after. The only effective testing is testing to see if people have the antibodies, and we’re not doing that kind of testing.

So all the case numbers we here on the news every day are fairly worthless. The total number of cases has to be exponentially higher than what we know. However, the death totals, though probably inflated due to the monetary incentive hospitals have to label COVID as the cause of death, are pretty reliable (if not slightly exaggerated).

We can only assume that the infinitesimally small percent of people who die from COVID is actually even less than we know.

With all this in mind, there’s really no credibility to reports of the virus surging or contracting. It’s more a result of just happening to test the right (or wrong) people at the right time. It’s a game of chance.

Sure, the virus is spreading, and we know it spreads easily. But the critical piece of information that’s missing is how many people have already had it.

I know I have…