Five years on, what did COVID teach you?

If you opened the link of the peer reviewed study you'd see that it was detected in samples in Italy prior to it being identified in China. It may originated elsewhere, but just because it was detected in tissue samples in Italy doesn't mean that's where it started

Because Italian authorities were open about detection whereas China were hiding it , therefore they hid the fact that the virus was spreading in late 2019 and the probable origins was the Wuhan live animal market which they shut down very early on. Why did China prevent international scientists from doing an investigation for so long afterwards and then prevented the best scientists from entering the country through visa bans. They obviously were hiding something. Its the playbook of all authoritarian regimes and your fringe view is similar to how russian propagandists spread disinformation. They throw out a whole lot of lies and rubbish repeatedly everywhere in the hope that some gullible people will believe it

Exactly. Being honest it never really affected me at all, except the very start for the work, but that was lovely 😂

From Wikipedia on how covid 19 started and what everyone else knows

"The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Soon after, it spread to other parts of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed it as having become a pandemic on 11 March.[3] The WHO declared the public health emergency caused by COVID-19 had ended in May 2023.[4]"

So your assertion that it began in Italy is just false propaganda and misinformation

I still use a mask if there's coughing going on around me on planes and public transport, have I not moved on?

Well if someone is coughing and spluttering with an abvious dose but doesn't mask I'm not going to comment as they've already demonstrated that they either don't give two fooks if they infect everyone around them or they still don't understand how viruses move.

Why would medical staff bother at all which such compelling online authority.

Yep, why the whole masking thing was such a placebo.

I wear them to prevent specimen contamination, yes, some masks can help prevent you becoming infected but the regular run of the mill ones do more to prevent you spreading than to protect you.

Nothing falese there.

Lol, the irony, if it makes you feel sade then just do as you do but weakening your imune system is very counterproductive.

Hmmm, HSE weren't very pro masking to begin with, it was public opinion that really pushed the masking thing in the beginning, the governemnt went with it to appease the karens, there were benefits but ulimately for maost it was a gesture and no more, we still see people not washing hands after the bathroom etc so most who did wear them only done so as a gesture, as one poster alreayd said it was probably the same mask for the entirity lol.

They could only slow it down, not stop the spread; good mask, bad mask or no mask,it was just delaying the inevitable but it was the best they could do, thye did pretty well until it became facrical (pretty early on).

A better engagement with prople might have resulted in better masking but the resentment was there, ultimately caused by their mixed messages.