Color scanning electron micrograph of infected neo-coronavirus particles (yellow) isolated from a patient sample
New evidence from China confirms what epidemiologists have long suspected: that the new coronavirus (CCP virus) may have spread undetected in the Wuhan area from November 2019, before the outbreak broke out at multiple points throughout the city in December.
New evidence suggests that the new coronavirus may have spread in China before the first confirmed case was found, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Chinese Communist authorities identified 174 confirmed cases in the Wuhan area from December 2019, which is enough to suggest that the number of mild, asymptomatic or otherwise undetected cases was much higher than previously thought, WHO researchers said.
Many of the 174 cases have no known connection to the market initially thought to be the source of the outbreak, according to information gathered by WHO investigators during a four-week retrospective mission to China.WHO panel members said the Chinese government did not provide the panel with raw data on these cases and earlier potential cases.
WHO investigators said that in examining 13 viral gene sequences from December 2019, the Chinese government found similar gene sequences for cases linked to this market, but slightly different gene sequences for unlinked cases from that market.
The newspaper reported earlier that about 90 people in central China were hospitalized with symptoms similar to New Crown pneumonia in the two months before the first case of New Crown was detected in Wuhan in late 2019, according to WHO investigators. They have urged the Chinese side to conduct further testing.
About 90 people in central China were hospitalized with symptoms similar to New Crown pneumonia in the two months before the first case of New Crown was detected in Wuhan in late 2019, according to World health Organization investigators. They said they would press the Chinese government to allow further testing to determine whether the new coronavirus had begun spreading earlier than known.
According to the investigators, Chinese government authorities have tested about two-thirds of those patients for antibodies over the past two months and say they have found no traces of infection with the virus. But members of the WHO team investigating the origins of the outbreak said any antibodies could have faded to undetectable levels during the delay.
“Further research is needed,” said Peter Ben Embarek, a Food safety scientist who led the WHO team mentioned above. The team has wrapped up a four-week visit to China.
Members of the WHO team said they urged China to conduct more extensive testing of blood samples collected around Hubei in the fall of 2019 to look for evidence about when the new coronavirus first spread. Wuhan is located in Hubei, and WHO investigators say Chinese Communist authorities have said they have not been given the necessary authority to test the samples themselves. Many of those samples are kept in blood banks.
According to an earlier report in the Wall Street Journal, WHO investigators said Chinese authorities have refused to provide them with raw, personalized data on early cases of the new coronavirus that could help them determine how and when it first began to spread in China.
World Health Organization investigators say Chinese authorities have refused to provide them with raw, personalized data on early cases of New Coronavirus that might help them determine how and when transmission first began in China. These investigators say the lack of data details has led to heated arguments between the two sides.
What the Chinese Communist Party authorities refused to provide was raw, personalized data on the 174 cases of neo-crown diagnosed in the early stages of the Wuhan outbreak in December 2019. The investigators were part of a WHO team that completed a month-long retrospective investigation of the outbreak in China this week.
Members of that WHO team said Chinese officials and scientists provided their own extensive summary and analysis of the data on those cases. The Chinese also provided summary data and analysis from a retrospective study of medical records from the months before the outbreak was identified in Wuhan, saying they found no traces of the virus.
But the panelists said the Chinese Communist Party did not allow them access to the raw underlying data from these retrospective studies, which would have allowed them to conduct their own analysis of just how early and how widespread the spread of the new coronavirus began in China. The panelist said WHO member countries usually cooperate with WHO investigations to provide such data.
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