Recently, Harvard University “thesis” swiped on various social media. The ABC reported that the Harvard thesis analyzed the traffic flow and keyword search volume near several hospitals in Wuhan that the new coronary pneumonia outbreak may have occurred in Wuhan as early as the end of August last year.

　　After the news came out, people who read the paper all shouted "exotic flowers", and some netizens even compiled a cold joke based on this: Who uses Baidu for scientific research? Harvard!

　　This is a magical "paper", what is so strange?

　　First, the evidence is clearly wrong. There are two types of evidence in the thesis. One is the analysis of more than 100 satellite observation pictures of the parking lot of 6 hospitals such as Wuhan Zhongnan Hospital and Hubei Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and it is pointed out that there are more cars in October 2019 than in October 2018; Wuhan netizens searched for the number of keywords "cough" and "diarrhea" in China's Baidu search engine, and pointed out that the search volume of these two words increased last fall. It was concluded that as early as the fall of 2019 or even August, Wuhan had some anomalies.

　　Both of these evidences are clearly untenable.

　　Let me talk about satellite pictures first. There is a clear difference between the angles and shadows of buildings in the 2018 satellite pictures and the 2019 satellite pictures, because they were taken at different times of the day. The 2018 parking lot photo was taken by a satellite passing through Wuhan at 1:30 p.m., which is a period of less patients during the day, and the buildings are shaded, blocking some vehicles; the 2019 parking lot photo is crossing at 10:30 am Satellite shooting in Wuhan, this is the peak hours of daily visits, and there are fewer shadows in the buildings, so there are more vehicles.

　　Let's talk about Baidu search again. Baidu's official Weibo responded on the 10th that the Harvard paper concluded that it was "very far-fetched and not rigorous", because "the peak search volume of "cough" in Wuhan area coincides with the annual flu season, and the search volume for "diarrhea" is similar to previous years. The ratio has not changed significantly. At the same time, the Baidu index shows that the search volume for'diarrhea' has declined slightly in December 2019."

　　Secondly, the logic is very far-fetched. Can the number of cars in the parking lot be related to the new coronary pneumonia epidemic? If all of this can be linked, then US satellites can also scan the playgrounds of Chinese universities in September and October each year, and may be able to conclude that China has carried out large-scale military training, because there are a lot of military uniforms in the university playgrounds in September and October. Of freshmen are training, but not at other times.

　　Many international public health experts also think that this logical reasoning is ridiculous. On June 10, the WHO responded to this paper by saying that the number of cars in the hospital parking lot should not be interpreted too much, nor should this situation be related to the new coronary pneumonia epidemic.

　　It is ridiculous to use "cough" and "diarrhea" as search keywords. Cough and diarrhea are common symptoms of many diseases, such as flu. To investigate patients with new coronary pneumonia, obviously the keyword "pneumonia" is more appropriate. The research team at Harvard University does not search for the keyword "pneumonia", but instead searches for "cough" and "diarrhea." Is it because the search volume for "pneumonia" in the United States is higher because of the summer and autumn of last year? After all, many people were very impressed and puzzled by the e-cigarette pneumonia that occurred in the United States at that time.

　　Why would Harvard University, the world's most famous university, concoct such a "thesis" that is full of mistakes and laughs? Why did one of the authors of the paper happen to be an ABC writer who exclusively reported on the paper, and it happened that before the paper was even pre-released, it had already received more data and reported it?

　　Obviously, this is a typical case of politicizing the epidemic situation and concocting false academic research results with a predetermined political standpoint. The “overturning” of the Harvard paper is not accidental, but the inevitable result of political interference in science and disrespect for science.

　　Virus tracing is a serious scientific research with only one purpose, which is to help us scientifically deal with the threat posed by the new coronavirus to humans. And to get a correct conclusion, we must respect the laws of science and adhere to scientific attitudes and methods. If you politicize the epidemic and put your political position before the scientific attitude, there will be an erroneous result such as the overturned Harvard "paper". This is undoubtedly a hindrance for humans to fight the epidemic together. .

　　She Huimin