Peter Ben Embarek, the lead researcher of the World health Organization (WHO) investigation team in Wuhan, told CNN after returning to Switzerland from China that the Wuhan pneumonia (novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) outbreak had spread widely in Wuhan in December 2019, with thousands of patients estimated to have been ill at that Time.
According to CNN, Embarek said Chinese scientists told them that of the 174 cases in Wuhan and its vicinity in December of the previous year, 100 were confirmed by laboratory tests and 74 were confirmed by clinical symptoms of patients with Wuhan pneumonia.
Embarek said, from this situation, it seems that there may be more people infected with the disease, estimated to be around 1,000 people. Embarek further pointed out that although the investigation team has not yet modeled the Epidemic at the time, it is known that about 15% of the patients diagnosed will have severe symptoms, and the majority of the rest will have mild symptoms, so it can be estimated.
Embarek revealed that a team of 17 WHO scientists and 17 Chinese representatives examined early Wulong virus DNA from December 1 of the previous year and found that 13 different virus genetic sequences were present in Wuhan, some from the local South China seafood market and others unrelated to the market, which undoubtedly means that Wuhan pneumonia may have been officially noticed in China as early as mid-December of the previous year. This undoubtedly means that Wuhan pneumonia may have spread in China long before it was officially noticed in mid-December of the previous year.
That’s why, Embarek said, they want China to open up its blood database, especially the thousands of samples from the Wuhan Blood Donor Bank dating back 2 years; after all, much of the evidence collected in China in the wake of Wuhan pneumonia was discarded months or weeks later, leaving the WHO mission with nothing at all to test.
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