1st Covid case in China likely present in Oct’19
BEIJING/SYDNEY: The coronavirus linked to Covid-19 may have been spreading in China as early as October 2019, a new study has found, pushing the date back by weeks before the first case was officially identified in the central city of Wuhan.
Officially, the first Covid-19 case is said to have been identified on December 8 and linked to Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market. But, the new study by researchers from Britain’s University of Kent pins the most likely date on November 17, saying that it had spread globally by January, 2020.
The paper was published on June 24 on the PLOS Pathogens journal. “Our results suggest that the virus emerged in China in early October to mid-November, 2019 (the most likely date being November 17), and by January, 2020, had spread globally”, the researchers said, adding that it suggests a much earlier and more rapid spread than is evident from confirmed cases.
The research estimates that the virus spread beyond China by January 2020 with the estimated first case being in Japan on January 3, 2020 and followed by Thailand on January 7, 2020.
The researchers added that the virus is likely to have left eastern Asia and arrived in
Europe, with an estimated first case on January 12, 2020 in Spain; South Korea is next on the list where the virus appeared on January 14. Following the spread to Europe, the virus appears to have spread to North America with an estimated first case being in the US on January 16, making it the fifth country.
Covid success stories Oz, Israel impose new curbs Australia and Israel, which had been successful in fending off Covid-19, reimposed restrictions on Friday as cases surges of the Delta variant, first found in India, which also threatened Africa with a brutal third wave.
The centre of Australia’s largest city Sydney entered lockdown, a shock for a population that had returned to relative normality after months of recording very few local cases, while vaccination success story Israel reimposed indoor mask-wearing less than two weeks after it lifted the measure.
Africa centres for disease control and prevention director John Nkengasong described the third wave hitting the continent as “extremely brutal” and “very devastating”. The Delta variant has been reported in 14 African countries, making up the bulk of new cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to the World Health Organization.