December 9, the Italian newspaper République reported that researchers at the University of Milan found the novel coronavirus in the pharynx secretion of a four-year-old child extracted in early December 2019, and inferred that the novel coronavirus had spread in Italy in mid-November 2019.
According to the report, on November 21, 2019, a four-year-old child in Milan developed cold and fever. On November 30, he was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment due to vomiting and dyspnea.
On December 5, the hospital was diagnosed with measles after extracting his pharynx secretion. The pharynx swab sample was later stored at low temperature in accordance with the measles epidemic prevention regulations. Recently, researchers at the University of Milan tested 39 throat swab-like samples from September 2019 to February 2020 for COVID-19 and found that the child was infected with the novel coronavirus at that time. The results of the research have been published in the International Medical Journal and the website of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As early as June this year, the Italian National Institute of Advanced Health published a report on its official website that the novel coronavirus was detected in wastewater samples in the northern Italian cities of Milan and Turin last December.
Spain: Coronavirus was detected in wastewater last March
In June this year, the University of Barcelona in Spain issued an announcement that researchers from the enterovirus team of the University of Barcelona tested local wastewater samples and found that there were traces of COVID-19 in the wastewater collected on March 12 last year.
Spanish researchers detected COVID-19 in wastewater collected on March 12 last year
United States: A mayor of New Jersey contracted the novel coronavirus last November
According to U.S. media reports, Michael Melham, mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, said that he contracted COVID-19 last November. Subsequently, Melham obtained test results that he already had antibodies against the novel coronavirus in his body, and the U.S. media earlier reported that the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was in late January this year.
In addition, a recent study released by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also shows that the novel coronavirus appeared in the United States as early as mid-December 2019, a month before the first confirmed local case officially reported by the United States.
In this study, the CDC tested 7,389 blood donation samples collected from residents of nine states across the United States from December 13, 2019 to January 17, 2020. The results show that 106 antibodies against COVID-19 have been found, indicating that COVID-19 infection may have appeared in the United States in December 2019. U.S. media reports say that there is increasing evidence that the novel coronavirus appeared outside China earlier than previously recognized.
France: Suspected cases of COVID-19 were admitted to hospital in November last year
In May this year, the Albert Schweitzel Hospital in France issued an announcement that Schmidt, the head of the medical imaging department of the hospital, had re-examined all 2,456 chest negatives taken from November 1 last year to April 30 this year. The study found that the earliest cases with typical COVID-19 symptoms date back to November 16 last year, and the number of similar cases continued to slowly grow until the end of February this year, and then entered a rapid rise stage, peaking on March 31 this year.
British scientific research team: COVID-19 may have begun to spread at the end of last year
Research teams from University College London and other institutions analyzed more than 7,500 viral genome data from people living with COVID-19 around the world. The analysis believes that the end of last year may be the time when the novel coronavirus jumps from nature to human hosts, that is, the novel coronavirus has spread widely around the world by the end of last year.
Regarding the source of the virus, Dr. Peter Foster of Cambridge University in the United Kingdom said that there is still no clear answer to the source of the virus, but their study believes that the first confirmed case of COVID-19 should occur in late October to early November last year.
