Thread by @DrDenaGrayson

🚨BREAKING: @WHO team is investigating cases of ~90 people hospitalized with #COVID19-like symptoms in central #China in October 2019—2 months BEFORE Beijing acknowledged the 1st #coronavirus infections in #Wuhan in late 2019.

wsj.com/articles/possi…

#China conducted #coronavirus antibody tests on about 2/3 of those patients in the past few months, and said they found no antibodies. But antibodies could have waned to undetectable levels during the year-plus delay.🙄

#COVID19

The WHO team urged #China to conduct wider tests on blood samples collected in autumn 2019 & held in blood banks around Hubei—#Wuhan’s province—to find when the #coronavirus 1st circulated. Chinese authorities said they hadn’t yet obtained necessary permissions to test samples.🙄

WHO’s finding is NOT surprising—only 2/3 of the infected people in the first cases reported in #Wuhan had exposure to the wet market.

Importantly, Patient Zero in #Wuhan (the 1st “known” #COVID19 case) had NO known links to the market.🧐

#coronavirus
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

This disclosure by #China supports my longstanding suspicion that the #coronavirus was spreading in #China much earlier than Dec 8—when Beijing 1st acknowledged the 1st #Wuhan patient.

Earlier detection could have helped contain the outbreak before it became a global #pandemic🤬

If the 90 cases in #China included #COVID19, it would help explain suspected #coronavirus cases that researchers believe occurred in Europe and possibly the U.S. as early as November and December 2019.🦠

Italian researchers found evidence of #COVID19 in a 4-yo boy from Milan treated for respiratory symptoms and vomiting on Nov 30, 2019—RNA exactly matching part of the #coronavirus—while retrospectively testing a respiratory specimen from the boy, along with other patients.🧬🦠