[2006alum]

As for the "new Stanford study" of 1700 throat swabs is that they had other samples that didn't show any COVID until (IIRC) the second week of February, and then but a single case that week.

Yet, two (non-traveling) people died of COVID-19, on Feb. 6 and Feb 17.

It is tough to prove a negative.

True, but the fact that none of the 1,700 throat swabs of patients with flu-like symptoms in November and December came back positive for COVID-19 suggests that, at a minimum, it was not widely spreading prior to January, which would also be consistent with the first death coming on Feb. 6. 

As I said, all this debunks is the notion that it was widely circulating at the end of 2019, not that there no cases of it in January 2020.

[2006alum]

As for the "new Stanford study" of 1700 throat swabs is that they had other samples that didn't show any COVID until (IIRC) the second week of February, and then but a single case that week.

Yet, two (non-traveling) people died of COVID-19, on Feb. 6 and Feb 17.

It is tough to prove a negative.

True, but the fact that none of the 1,700 throat swabs of patients with flu-like symptoms in November and December came back positive for COVID-19 suggests that, at a minimum, it was not widely spreading prior to January, which would also be consistent with the first death coming on Feb. 6. 

As I said, all this debunks is the notion that it was widely circulating at the end of 2019, not that there no cases of it in January 2020.