Not in the Wuhan market … a surprise about Corona, standards fluctuate

Among the latest findings from the World Health Organization team that visited China to investigate the emergence of Corona, new evidence reached by experts showed that the virus began to spread in the Wuhan region before the date of confirmed cases. announced by the Chinese authorities.

In details, the US “Wall Street Journal” quoted members of the expert team as saying that Chinese authorities had identified 174 confirmed cases across Wuhan in December, several cases indicating that there were many moderate cases or even none in that period. Symptoms, much more than previously thought.

The information also revealed that the 174 cases identified by the Chinese authorities had no known connection to the Wuhan market, which is the place where the virus appeared.

At a time when China refused to provide the WHO team with initial data on these cases and possible previous cases, the team is seeking data for more than 70,000 cases of influenza-like illnesses, fever and pneumonia recorded between the period. from October to December 2019., to identify possible cases of them Coronavirus.

The researchers also explained that, as of December, the Chinese authorities found during the examination of 13 gene sequences of the virus, a similar sequence among those cases linked to the market, but also found slight differences between people who were not related to the market. .

In turn, Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on the World Health Organization team, pointed out that this evidence indicates that the virus may have been transmitted to humans before the second half of November 2019, and by December the virus was spreading between people who had no connection to the Wuhan market.

In their interview with the newspaper, 6 researchers from the WHO team considered that the virus began to spread without anyone noticing in November, before it exploded in December.

It should be noted that the team of researchers, led by the World Health Organization, had arrived in early February at a veterinary facility in the city of Wuhan, in central China, to search for clues about the origin of the Covid pandemic. 19.

The team requested “detailed data” and plans to speak to doctors who have dealt with the disease and some of the first patients to recover from Corona.

These developments came after the Chinese government promoted theories, without strong evidence, claiming that the outbreak may have started with imports of frozen seafood contaminated with the virus, an idea that scientists and international agencies have strongly rejected.