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A new study that found traces of coronavirus in US blood samples from December last year is adding to the growing evidence that the virus was circulating for months before China announced its existence, casting more shadows over the truth about the pandemic and fuelling suspicions of a cover-up by Beijing.
Claims the global outbreak began in a livestock market in Wuhan last winter have crumbled in the face of scientific evidence proving the virus was all over the Western world weeks and even months before China declared the first cases to the World Health Organization on December 31.
Research published on Monday revealed that 39 blood samples taken between December 13 and 16 last year in California, Oregon and Washington state had tested positive for Covid antibodies, meaning the people who gave them had been infected weeks earlier.
The evidence is the earliest trace so far of the virus on US soil, and a further 67 samples from between December 30 and January 17 tested positive in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
It adds to a growing body of proof
that the virus had spread thousands of miles outside of China long
before its existence was acknowledged. Scientists in Italy say
they now have proof the virus was there in September 2019, traces
of it were found in Brazil in November, a French hospital patient
had it in his lungs in December, and the virus was present in
sewage in Spain in January.
The CDC study is the latest in a string of global papers that smash through claims that the virus didn't emerge until December:
The studies looking for historic traces of coronavirus divide into three main categories: they either look for signs of specific antibodies in old blood samples, test old sewage samples for traces of the virus's genetic material, or test bodily fluids from past hospital patients.
All the methods should – if they work perfectly – only show up genuine signs of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19. However, imperfect tests mean there is some room for error or misdiagnosis.
Looking for antibodies in past blood samples is a robust way of checking for the disease because antibodies specific to this coronavirus can generally only be found in people who have been infected with it. They are made by the body's own immune system and only made if someone is exposed to the real virus.
A possible stumbling block of this method is that antibody tests are not 100 per cent accurate, meaning they will always produce false positive results. False positives appear where the true result is negative, giving misleading results, and are an inevitable part of medical testing.
This same problem can arise when testing former hospital patients' fluid samples, which is based on looking for signs of the virus's genetics in the person's bloodstream, which would indicate they were infected at the time.
Scientists have also claimed that some people develop generic coronavirus antibodies triggered by other, similar viruses that aren't SARS-CoV-2. This could make some people test positive when in fact they haven't had the virus.
Testing sewage samples for the virus relies on the presence of the virus's own genetic material, independent of any human bodily fluids.
The virus's genetics can be detected anywhere that viruses – whether dead or alive – are present. They may remain in water, for example, for days or even weeks after being transmitted out of the body through a cough or sneeze or in faeces. Finding traces of the virus in sewage water is a good indicator that it is infecting people in that area.
Almost 64million people worldwide have been officially diagnosed with the coronavirus since the pandemic began, although the total is known to be considerably higher, and around 1.5million have died.
Officials in China raised the alarm about 27 cases of the disease – which at the time they said was an unknown type of pneumonia – on December 31, 2019, although leaked documents have since proven they had recorded infections in Wuhan at least as early as November 17.
The first officially announced victim of Covid-19 was announced on January 11, and the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on January 31.
Documents leaked to CNN in the US show that China had kept thousands of coronavirus cases unreported during February as the pandemic spiralled out of control, on some days confirming fewer than half the number of infections that internal documents suggested had happened.
China has come under repeated fire since January over its apparent covering up of the true extent of coronavirus's spread in the country, including how many people caught the virus and when it started happening.
Despite being ground zero for the pandemic, the communist dictatorship has still only declared 93,000 cases and 4,700 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. This compares to 1.6m cases in the UK and 13.7m in the US.
Commenting on discrepancies in China's numbers, the Council on Foreign Relations's Yanzhong Huang told CNN: 'It was clear they did make mistakes - and not just mistakes that happen when you're dealing with a novel virus - also bureaucratic and politically-motivated errors in how they handled it.'
Trying to save face politically is thought to have been a driver behind the country's delay in publicly announcing it had found the disease. Documents suggest it was first discovered in mid-November but not confirmed until the end of December.
The US study of blood samples taken at around the time China was first realising it had a disease outbreak has now confirmed the virus was already spreading in some states before last Christmas.Blood collected by the Red Cross between December 13, 2019, and January 17, 2020, was later sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to be tested for antibodies to coronavirus.
Antibodies are virus-destroying substances made by the immune system that are extremely specific to only one virus, and they can only be made if someone has been infected or vaccinated. The presence of coronavirus antibodies in someone's blood is considered scientific proof they have had the virus.
Testing revealed antibodies in 39 samples from blood donated between December 13 and December 16 in California, Oregon, and Washington.
Another 67 samples taken between
December 30 and January 17 from donors in the Midwest and
Northeast were positive for antibodies, but the first US case of
coronavirus was not reported until January 19.