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– COVID-19 was likely to be in the United States in mid-December 2019, weeks before the virus was first identified in China.
– Growing evidence, such as the detection of the virus genome in sewage samples on March 12, 2019 in Spain, shows that COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.
– Tracing the virus source is serious scientific matter. Being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
– Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has often not been where it came from.
BEIJING / WASHINGTON, December 2 – A study recently released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that COVID-19 was likely to be in the United States in mid-December 2019 , weeks before the virus first appeared. identified in China, increasing evidence suggesting that the coronavirus was spreading around the world earlier than previously known.
COVID-19 infections “may have been present in the US as of December 2019,” about a month before the first case was officially confirmed in the United States, CDC scientists wrote after finding evidence. of infection in 106 of the 7,389 blood donations from residents. in nine states across the country, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
BEFORE IN US
In the study, CDC researchers found specific antibodies to the new coronavirus in 39 samples from the state of California, Oregon and Washington collected between December 13 and 16, and in 67 samples in Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin or Iowa, and Connecticut or Rhode Island collected between December 30 and January 17.
The study also highlighted the value of examining routinely collected blood samples for evidence of viruses spreading in a population, the researchers said, adding that the CDC continues to conduct ongoing surveillance using blood donations and clinical laboratory samples. to detect COVID-19 infection at various sites across the country.
Before this latest report, the first case of the new coronavirus in the United States was reported on January 19 of this year, two days after national testing began, according to the CDC.
However, some reports have suggested that the entry of the virus into the United States may have occurred earlier than initially recognized, although widespread community transmission was not likely until late February, the study authors said.
Furthermore, Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville in the US state of New Jersey, said in late April that he had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies and believed he had contracted the virus in November last year, despite the A doctor’s assumption that Melham went through was just the flu.
“My fear is that there are many who have dismissed a potentially positive coronavirus diagnosis as severe flu,” the mayor said in his statement.
EVIDENCE AROUND THE WORLD
Not just in the United States, more research has added to mounting evidence that COVID-19 was circulating outside of China earlier than previously thought.
In Spain, researchers from the University of Barcelona, one of the most prestigious universities in the European country, had detected the presence of the virus genome in wastewater samples collected on March 12, 2019, the university said in a statement in June.
These results “suggest that the infection was present prior to any known case of COVID-19 anywhere in the world,” the statement said.
“Although COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, the researchers showed that there are large amounts of the coronavirus genome in the excrement that reaches the wastewater. This situation made wastewater-based epidemiology a potential tool for early detection. of the circulation of the virus among the population, “the statement said.
In France, scientists found that a man was infected with COVID-19 in December last year, about a month before the country confirmed its first cases.
Citing a doctor at the Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, BBC News reported that the patient “must have been infected between December 14 and 22, as symptoms of the coronavirus take between five and 14 days to appear. “.
Meanwhile, in Italy, recent research from the National Cancer Institute in Milan showed that 11.6 percent of the 959 healthy volunteers who participated in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed COVID-19 antibodies long before February, when the first official case was recorded in the country, with four cases from the study dated to the first week of October last year, meaning those people had been infected in September.
SCIENTIFIC EXAM
Regarding the new findings, Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program, told a news conference on Friday that the WHO is “working with scientists from around the world.” .
The organization “will take every detection in France, in Spain, in Italy very seriously, and we will examine each and every one of them,” he said.
Indeed, virus source tracing is a serious scientific matter, which should be based on science and studied by scientists and medical experts. When it comes to COVID-19, being the first to report the virus does not mean that the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Historically, the place where a virus was first reported has often not been where it came from. HIV infection, for example, was first reported by the United States, but it is also possible that the virus did not originate from the United States. And more and more evidence shows that the Spanish flu did not originate in Spain.
As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said, WHO is “committed to doing everything possible based on science and solutions to find the origin and that is the basics.”
“We need to do the basics and we will not stop knowing the truth about the origin of the virus but based on science, without politicizing it or trying to create tension in the process,” observed the head of the WHO.
