Tracing the Novel Coronavirus Timeline: Cases in Many European and American Countries in Autumn 2019

The World Health Organization (WHO) International Expert Group on Novel Coronavirus Traceability visited China on January 14, and conducted joint scientific research cooperation with Chinese scientists on Novel Coronavirus Traceability.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press conference on January 18 that the issue of the origin of the covid is a very serious scientific issue that should be drawn by scientists and medical experts based on facts.

In fact, since May 2020, there have been multiple authoritative media reports, scientific studies show that novel coronavirus has been in existence in many places around the world at least since the fall of 2019.

Reuters: Volunteers in Italy were infected with novel coronavirus in September 2019

Novel coronavirus has been circulating in Italy since September 2019, according to a study by the National Cancer Institute in Milan.

The first COVID-19 patient in Italy was detected on 19 February 2020 in a town near the city of Milan in the northern Lombardy region.
But researchers in Italy found that 11.6 percent of 959 healthy volunteers screened for lung cancer between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed antibodies against Novel Coronavirus by February.
Their findings are published in the Journal of Oncology, the scientific journal of the National Cancer Institute.

One of the authors of the study, Giovanni Appolone, told Reuters that the study showed four cases dating back to the first week of October 2019.
The cases showed antibodies to Novel Coronavirus, meaning they were infected in September.

Italian researchers told Reuters in March 2020 that they found more severe pneumonia and flu cases than usual in the Lombardy region in the last quarter of 2019, suggesting that the novel coronavirus may have spread earlier than previously thought.

EFE: Novel coronavirus was detected in Brazilian wastewater samples in November 2019

According to a report by EFE on July 2, 2020, Novel Coronavirus was found in the sewers of Florianopolis, the capital of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, as early as November 2019, according to a preliminary study conducted by the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil and the University of Burgos in Spain.
That is three months before the first case was confirmed in Latin America.
The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Brazil on 26 February 2020, which is the first case of COVID-19 in Latin America.

Novel coronavirus was found in two samples collected from the Florianopolis sewer wastewater on November 27, 2019, researchers at the Federal University of Santa Catarina said in a release.
The study analyzed samples of frozen water from sewers taken between October 2019 and March 2020.
Novel coronavirus was detected in water samples of November 27, 2019, and increased viral load was found in subsequent analysis of two sets of samples (December 11, 2019, and February 20, 2020).

That suggests that novel coronavirus was circulating in communities months before the first cases were reported in Latin America, according to the study, published online in the Archives of Medical Papers.

The team had “some doubts” about the original results, so they repeated the test and successfully traced the novel coronavirus genome, study co-author Gislena Fonggaro said in a press release.
“Out of caution, we used more than one viral marker to confirm this,” the researcher said.

“If you consider that it takes 15 to 20 days for the virus to cause an acute infection…
Then the obvious conclusion is that novel coronavirus spread early in human populations.”

La Repubblica: An Italian child carries Novel Coronavirus in November 2019

According to a report of La Repubblica on December 9, 2020, a team of researchers at the University of Milan reported that novel coronavirus was found in a 4-year-old child’s throat secretion extracted in early December 2019, which means that novel coronavirus may have spread in Italy as early as mid-November 2019.

On November 30, 2019, a four-year-old boy living in the city of Milan was reported to have been taken to the emergency room of a local hospital with symptoms including respiratory discomfort and vomiting.
The next day, the boy developed measles – like spots.
On December 5, 2019, the boy’s throat swab was tested for measles virus and the sample was retained as required.

Researchers at the University of Milan studied and analyzed throat swab samples retained from 39 rash cases in Milan between September 2019 and February 2020. Of these, 38 samples tested negative for novel coronavirus, while the 4-year-old boy’s throat swab sample tested positive and isolated the strain.

According to a retroactive analysis of a throat swab sample taken from a 4-year-old boy, the boy was infected with novel coronavirus four to five days before he developed respiratory symptoms, according to one of the study’s authors, Jos Bianchi.
The boy and his family have no history of travelling abroad.

RIA Novosti: In November 2019, there were 110 suspected covid cases in Italy

According to a report by RIA Novosti on 30 June 2020, health authorities in the Italian province of Bergamo have found 110 suspected cases of Covid-19 in the city of Alzano Lombardo, in the province, between November 2019 and February 2020.

As of the end of 2019, a total of 40 patients in Alzano Lombardo had been hospitalized with an “unknown virus,” Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported, citing information from the regional prosecutor’s office in the province of Bergamo.
The newspaper noted that because of the Italian Ministry of Health’s protocol, testing for novel coronavirus was not conducted immediately after the outbreak was declared in China.

The Associated Press also reported this story on July 1, 2020.
There is evidence that the novel coronavirus may have spread in northern Italy as early as November 2019, the report said.
Earlier this month, Italy’s National Institute of Health reported that a study had found traces of novel coronavirus in Milan and Turin as early as December 18, 2019, two months before Italian officials announced the first confirmed cases of the virus.

Spanish newspaper El Pais: In December 2019, Italian wastewater samples had Novel Coronavirus

According to a report on the website of the Spanish newspaper El Pais on June 20, 2020, Novel coronavirus reached Italy as early as mid-December 2019, according to a study published by the Italian Institute of Higher Health.

The study analyzed 40 waste water samples collected between October 2019 and February 2020 from cities including Turin, Milan and Bologna, and detected the presence of novel coronavirus in 14 of them.
The results seem beyond doubt, as they have been confirmed by two different laboratories using different analytical methods.
The presence of novel coronavirus was detected in Milan and Turin wastewater sampled on December 18, 2019, and in Bologna wastewater sampled on January 29, 2020.
Novel coronavirus was also found in January and February 2020 wastewater samples from those cities, while samples from October and November 2019 showed negative results.

Reuters: A Covid-19 patient was admitted to France in December 2019

A French hospital re-examined old samples from a pneumonia patient and found that a man with Covid-19 had been admitted to the hospital on December 27, 2019, nearly a month before the French government confirmed the first case.

Yves Coen, head of the intensive care unit at the Avisennes and Jean-Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told the media that researchers reexamined samples from 24 patients admitted in December 2019 and January 2020, when they tested negative for the flu virus.

Of those 24, one patient admitted Dec. 27 tested positive for Novel Coronavirus, Dr. Coon said.

The hospital initially took the samples to test for influenza by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a test procedure that can also be used to test patients for novel coronavirus infection when they were sampled.

In December 2019, novel coronavirus was found in blood samples donated in the United States

According to a new study, Covid-19 may have arrived in the United States as early as December 2019, before the disease was even identified in China.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed more than 7,000 blood donor samples collected by the American Red Cross on December 13, 2019, solstice on January 17, 2020 in nine states, and 106 of them tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus antibody.

The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The findings suggest that “novel coronavirus cases may have been present in the United States as early as December 2019, earlier than previously thought,” the authors said.

Antibodies against other coronaviruses may “cross react” and present a positive result.
But when the researchers ran more tests to figure out such cross-reactions, they found that 84 of the 90 samples tested had antibodies specific to novel coronavirus.

Overall, the finding “results in a very small probability of false positives in all the responding samples,” the authors said.
In other words, at least some of the positive samples collected between December 2019 and January 2020 were likely the result of previous exposure to novel coronavirus.