Unlikely, of course, but an interestingwhat if.

What a wonderful relief that would be.

It would mean were already through the worst of the epidemic.

Its death toll, however large, would be in our past.

That cheery conclusion should be your first hint that this theory is based more on wishful thinking than fact.

The idea just doesnt add up, so lets talk about why.

Even so, theyre not rewriting the timeline of when the virus hit the US.

If you were to contract COVID-19 from your neighbor, your virus and theirs would be nearly identical.

(Viruses accumulate small mutations over time; so do we, but viruses reproduce faster.)

In fact, there is a massive global project to do exactly that, calledNextstrain.

you’ve got the option to browse the global datahere.

Research from multiple groups of scientists has been consistent with this.

The first two US cases, in Washington state, were closely related to each other.

But the overall picture is pretty clear: Most of us did not.

Bottom line, we dont need to speculate about when and where the virus got to the US.

Right now, New York is one of the US cities hardest hit by COVID-19.

You cannot miss the surge of deaths, nor ofhospital cases and ventilator usage.

This virus doesnt fly under the radar.

Could mild cases have been misdiagnosed?

A few, perhaps.

But not a ton.

COVID-19 most commonly presents with a fever and cough.

The trends for ILI this fall and winter are similar to those of previous years.

So much for that theory.

I know, you still want to believe

Think back to pre-pandemic times.

Remember that our brains work in strange ways.

Sure, maybe you had a cold this year that was worse than what you normally get.

Maybe you had even traveled before getting it.

But, again, our brains.

After that, other witnesses started pointing out white vans as well.

But there are a lot of white vans around everywhere, all the time.

Start looking for them; youll see a bunch.

It turns out that the white vans had nothing to do with the shootings.

The snipers were actually driving ablue Chevy.

In this case, colds and flu are the white vans.