How long has COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 been around really? A few months? There is some evidence for it's appearance as early as November 2019, as has been reported by France and China. But it may have been around even sooner than that.

<center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/TdKtDQw.jpg" /><br/><em><sub><a href="https://www.teriin.org/blog/drying-antimicrobial-resistance-innovative-wastewater-treatment">Source</a></sub></em></center>

In a paper [published](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1) on June 13, 2020, researchers from Spain have found SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater going back to March 2019. That changes the narrative quite a bit as to the onset of it's appearance, and by consequence how viral it is.

> SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate measures in the event of future COVID-19 waves.

We were told the virus first appeared in Wuhan, China in December 2019. And since then, it's spread like wildfire. It is very contagious, infecting people rapidly, and killing many with no cure. At least, that's the narrative.

The reality is that there is treatment. There is no insta-cure to take and boom it wipes the virus out. Instead, the treatments are helping the body combat the infection. This includes using drugs like hydroxychloroquine with nutrients like zinc. But nutrients that boost the immunes system are good alone to combat the infection and reduce symptoms and severity. This includes vitamin D, C, A and zinc. CLinics have been successfully treating people with these nutrients, but you won't hear the mainstream media talk about ways to help people.

We are told SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory disease, but there is evidence that it acts more like cyanide, inducing a hypoxic condition in most severe cases where blood can't transport oxygen throughout the body.

The alleged virus can make it's way into sewage and reach waters. This vector for distributing the virus is a potential way to apply early detection of the virus circulating in public. Researchers say the results confirm the validity of waste water surveillance to [anticipate](https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/sars-cov-2-traces-detected-in-barcelona-waste-water-from-march-2019-336688) cases.

> "Those infected with COVID-19 could have been diagnosed with flu in primary care by mistake, contributing to the community transmission before the public health took measures."

> "In the specific case of Barcelona –the virologist continues–, having detected the SARS-CoV-2 spread a month before could have improved the response to the pandemic."

> "All samples were negatives regarding the SARS-CoV-2 genome presence except for March 12, 2019, in which the levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive, using two different targets."

So the sample from March 2019 tested positive, but after that it was not detected. The idea is that visitors to Barcelona could have brought it. Any appearance of the infection would have been diagnosed as the flu.

On of the commenters of paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed, says:

> The authors do not detect SARS-CoV-2 in samples from 2019 March. Rather, they do detect IP2/IP4 resembling SARS-CoV-2. Whatever virus it is it does not have the E and N1/N2 of SARS-CoV-2. Fluctuations in qRT-PCRs even in 2020 samples -different sewers- are way too high to trust the reliability of the RT-PCRs. However, their approach is amazing. I hope they use a metagenomic approach to sequence to sewers rather than doing an RT-PCR assay, which doesn't look very rigorous.

Did they really detect SARS-COV-2? Or something else that shared some genetic similarities? It's interesting to consider whether the virus has actually been identified correctly. The gold standard for identifying a virus using the Koch postulates has not been done. Tests are being done for genes that are assumed to be what is referred to as COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2. But most scientists don't seem to care about that foundational basis to start from.