In reply to Removed User:
HIV is thought to have jumped into humans very roughly 110 years ago and the oldest confirmed case was 60 years ago (HIV detected later in preserved blood samples). Covid may have an older history in humans than we think.
I wonder how far back and in what variants Covid can be traced in blood samples/donations.
Covid much quicker acting (infection to illness in days) than HIV so not a hundred year history in humans unless it was a very different variant.
Is there evidence/theory about if a pandemic causing virus mutation occurred after Covid entered humans? Maybe spreads very slowly to infect a small number of people but once enough people are infected here's enough mutation going on within humans for a pandemic causing mutation of a novel* virus to happen.
*no prior immunity, presumably all viruses mutate but normally lots of prior immunity from earlier variants prevent a mutation being enough for pandemic.
Or was a human pandemic capable mutation already there in the bat/other host and it just needed an unlucky bat sneeze or whatever to infect a single person?
Unlikely that we will discover the first person with Covid as may have been an asymptomatic or mild cases that didn't get medical treatment or blood samples preserved. Blood donations are a good sample of Covid in the population, a bit biased towards healthy and public spirited so not wholly representative.
Post edited at 13:33