Thread by @rdmorris

I took a deeper dive into the Chongquin jogger study. It suggests Omicron is incredibly contagious. Is it flawed? are the data real? Follow the 🧵
For the full story, look here:
covid.dropcite.com/articles/3d411…

The first 8 weeks of the summer of 2022, the city of Chongqing, saw only 11 cases of COVID per week in a city of 30 million. Then, they recorded 54 cases in a week. As cases continued to rise, experts from around the country scrambled to understand what had happened.

Early in the pandemic, investigators attention focused on Longtou Park, a 42.5 acre park in the city center. Two cases were in park staff on August 18. When they began to question other cases, they discovered that 34 of them had all been in the park on the morning of August 16

A man who was waiting for the results of a COVID screening test, had gone for a 35 minute run around the lake at the center of the park, unmasked. An hour later he got the positive test result. Patient Zero (PZ)
Again, much of the story here.
covid.dropcite.com/articles/3d411…

Reviewing surveillance video, investigators identified 104 people who were unmasked and came within one meter of PZ. Of the 104, 13 had been diagnosed with COVID. Another 19 had visited or been at the lake during the run.

Calculating incidence rates requires denominators, but we only know 3:
1. Those with close, maskless exposure to PZ during his run,
2.Those who were in the park but did not have close, maskless exposure, and
3. Those who were not in the park that day.

Investigators sequenced the genomes from all the COVID cases among park visitors and staff from whom they could obtain an adequate sample. Of the 34 testable samples, 29 were an exact match to PZ. The other 5 had a single mutation.

The study suggests that PZ was infected on a plane by three people who were on the plane THE DAY BEFORE. This seems unlikely. (More on DropCite)

38 of the 39 people who became infected in the park were not wearing masks. What was the base rate of mask wearing among people in the park?
“Masks are still ubiquitous in Covid-Zero China, even outdoors in the major cities” Bloomberg 8-2-22
.bloomberg.com/news/features/…

I have been criticized for calling the evidence “overwhelming”, but if these data are accurate, this as close to metaphysical certainty as I have seen. Are the data real? Where are the sequence data? I sent questions to the authors and posted them:
covid.dropcite.com/articles/3d411…