- The first known Covid-19 case was a vendor at the live-animal market in Wuhan, according to a scientist who has scrutinised public accounts of the earliest cases in China.
- To deride and dismiss the accounts of these individuals as hearsay is beyond disrespectful.
- It all but ruled out the possibility that Covid-19 originated in a laboratory.
- Those patients with no direct link lived or worked nearby.
According to a scientist who has examined public descriptions of the earliest cases in China, the first recorded Covid-19 patient was a trader at a live-animal market in Wuhan as reported by The Guardian.
New data
The timeline contradicts a timeline put out in a pivotal World Health Organization (WHO) report, which claimed the first known patient was an accountant with no obvious ties to the Hunan market.
The new data backs with the hypothesis that the virus came from wild animals sold at markets rather than a leak from a Wuhan virology lab, and it raises issues about how the apparent error was ignored in the joint WHO-China investigation.
It effectively ruled out the likelihood that Covid-19 was created in a lab.
Mr Chen, an accountant with no known ties to the market, was interviewed by the specialists. He had apparently acquired symptoms on December 8th, and the March report classified him as the first known instance.
However, a new study published in Science points out inconsistencies in this timeline.
Chen told a Chinese news site that he went to a doctor on December 8 for a dental problem, but that he didn’t have Covid symptoms until the 16th.
Symptomatic areas
Worobey was one of a group of 15 academics who issued an editorial in Science in mid-May calling for a thorough examination of the theory that the virus had spilt from a Wuhan facility.
No live mammal taken from Wuhan’s live-animal market was tested for Sars-CoV-2-related viruses, and the Hunan market was shut down and sanitised shortly after the symptomatic cases began to rise.
To re-examine the issue, Worobey examined cases reported by two hospitals prior to the alert being issued and discovered that they, too, were predominantly tied to the market.
Patients who did not have a direct link to the hospital lived or worked in the area.
The western half, where raccoon dogs were imprisoned, was connected to the majority of early symptomatic cases.
“If the outbreak didn’t start at the market, it becomes very difficult to explain that pattern.”
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Source: The Guardian
