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State media have been reporting intensively on the coronavirus discovered in imported frozen food packaging, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and investigating possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders prior to December 2019.
The official People’s diary The newspaper claimed in a Facebook post last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus did not start in Wuhan, central China.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, asked about state media reports that the virus originated outside of China, said only that it was important to distinguish between where Covid-19 was first detected and where it crossed the line. species barrier to infect humans.
“Although China was the first to report cases, it does not necessarily mean that the virus originated in China,” Zhao Lijian said at a briefing. “Tracing of origin is an ongoing process that can involve multiple countries and regions.”
Chinese scientists have even submitted an article for publication to the Lancet – though not yet peer-reviewed – which states that “Wuhan is not the place where person-to-person transmission of Sars-CoV-2 first occurred”, suggesting that the first case may have been in the “Indian subcontinent”.
Western scientists give little credence to claims that the virus originated outside of China. Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergencies program, said last week that it would be “highly speculative” to argue that the disease did not arise in China.
