Where did the COVID-19 coronavirus come from?

A lot of speculation about the origins of this outbreak. If you're curious, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. In fact, it's happened many times. And just like now, no one wants to admit the truth... (thread)

New York City, 1916. At this moment in history, the paralysis of polio was largely unknown by most. It had begun to appear more frequently since the late 1890s, but was still rare. Just before the sweltering summer of 1916, residents of Brooklyn began to notice something wrong...

Mothers began to take their infants—mostly boys—to local nursing stations, their bodies limp, unable to move. More and more began to show up, and by June the 7th, it was clear something horrible was happening.

The outbreak spread beyond Brooklyn and into Manhattan. New York had never seen the polio infection spread like this before. But there was something else troubling about the epidemic—it could kill its victims more quickly than they'd ever seen.

Paralysis would start in their lower legs, as it typically did, but would ascend their spinal column, eventually paralyzing the muscles which allowed them to breathe. With iron lungs, or what we now would call "ventilators," years away, many died.

By the time the outbreak subsided, over 2,000 New Yorkers—mostly children—had died. Surrounding areas brought the total to over 6,000. It was unlike anything they had ever seen.

Almost 1500 children were killed by polio in New York City that summer, something which would never be repeated. Ever.

The 1916 polio epidemic quarantines and travel restrictions were extremely severe but seemed to do nothing to stop its spread.

The fact that 1,500 children died of polio in New York City in one summer is an astonishing number. Nothing ever came close to that number again. In 1952, otherwise the worst year of polio and in a much more populous America, just over 3,000 people died in the entire country.

What could have caused such a HUGE spike in polio deaths in New York City that summer in 1916? A spike which would never appear again?

This is where the coronavirus story begins to sound very familiar.

The outbreak appeared to have begun in Brooklyn. Just across the East River, not more than a mile or two away, some very interesting research was going on.

It was at the Rockefeller Institute. They were studying polio. And they were trying to make it more dangerous.

On purpose.

Why would a prestigious research facility in the middle of New York City in 1916 purposefully try to make the poliovirus MORE dangerous?

The same reason researchers in China MAY have been doing it.

(Hint: It wasn't to make a bioweapon).