Various Discoveries of SARS-CoV-2 Depict Different Picture of Its Origin
Yunlong Xia
The novel coronavirus (NCV), SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19 pandemic was first discovered in Wuhan, China on Dec.8, 2019.[1] The disease was fast isolated and identified by Chinese scientists and informed WHO on Dec. 31, 2019.[1] China shared the genetic sequence of NCV on January12, 2020, which was of great importance for other countries to use in developing specific diagnostic kits. WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020, and a pandemic in March 2020. As of 19 October 2020, 40.2 million cases have been reported across 189 countries and territories. It has killed 1.1 million people and more than 27.6 million have recovered.[2] , but the WHO estimates that around 800 million people in total may have been infected.[3] [4]
Science Magazine reported on last July 24 that researchers from Wuhan Institute of Virology and Huazhong Agricultural University didn’t find NCV in samples from farmed animals and livestock taken around Wuhan and in other places in Hubei province. Many years of surveillance in Hubei have never turned up bat coronaviruses close to SARS-CoV-2, which suggested that the jump from animals to humans happened elsewhere [5].
Because pandemic can happen anywhere in the world, we need to investigate its origin and evolution scientifically. Though the NCV was first discovery in Wuhan, there were several afterwards evidences indicated that it was existed at other places earlier than Wuhan.
1. Spain detected NCV in the wastewater samples of March 12, 2019
Reuters reported on June 27 that Spanish virologists have found traces of the NCV in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China[6]. The online journal Medrxiv.org published this study and it summarized that “SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate measures in the event of future COVID-19 waves” [7].
2. Japan tested its early 2019 blood samples and found two NCV positive
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released a report on May 15, 2020 that in order to evaluate the performance of the NCV test kits, the ministry tested 500 blood donation samples collected from January to March in 2019 in Japan's Kōshin'etsu region. Two out of the five hundreds samples showed positive results, indicating that two people were found to be infected by NCV [8].
3. France back traced its “Patient Zero” to Nov. 16, 2019
Researchers in the city of Colmar in northeastern France recently announced that they identified two X-rays from November 16 and November 18, 2019, that show symptoms they say are consistent with the NCV. If the November cases are confirmed, it would mean the virus was spreading in Europe a full two months before France declared it had Covid-19 cases and even before Wuhan, China confirmed the outbreak [9].
4. Brazil found NCV in its November 2019 sewage samples
Medrxiv.org published an article titled SARS-CoV-2 in human sewage in Santa Catalina, Brazil, November 2019. The authors analysed human sewage located in Florianopolis (Santa Catalina, Brazil) from late October until the Brazil lockdown on early March. They detected SARS-CoV-2 in two samples collected independently on 27th November 2019 (5.49 ± 0.02 log genome copies/L). Subsequent samplings were positive until 4th March 2020 (coinciding with the first COVID-19 case reported in Santa Catalina), with a SARS-CoV-2 RNA increase of one log (6.68 ± 0.02 log genome copies/L). These results show that SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in Brazil since late November 2019, earlier than the first reported case in Wuhan [10].
5. Italy detected NCV in sewage sample of December 18, 2019 and blood samples of September 2019
Italian researchers examined 40 waste water samples from October 2019 to February 2020 and discovered genetic traces of SARS-CoV-2 in samples of waste water collected in Milan and Turin on December 18, 2019 and in Bologna on January 29, 2020, the ISS institute said in a statement seen by AFP on Friday. The results were confirmed in two different laboratories by two different methods, showed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in samples taken in Milan and Turin. The NCV was present in two large Italian cities in December, more than two months before the first case was detected. That suggests the virus appeared in Italy around the same time it was first reported in China [11].
Recently, a paper titled “Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy” was published on November 11, 2020[16]. The authors investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 across the Italian regions. The antibodies were detected in 111 of 959 (11.6%) individuals, starting from September 2019 (14%), with a cluster of positive cases (>30%) in the second week of February 2020 and the highest number (53.2%) in Lombardy. This study shows an unexpected very early circulation of NCV among asymptomatic individuals in Italy several months before the first patient was identified. This discovery may reshape the history of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide.
6. Belleville Mayor declared his NCV infection to be in mid November, 2019
Mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, Michael Melham was tested positive for NCV antibodies on April 29, 2020. But he believes that he was sick with the virus in November 2019, more than a month before doctors in China first reported cases of NCV. Melham said he was sick toward the end of November and suffered from chills, hallucinations and a "skyrocketing temperature" after he left the League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City which was held November 19-21, 2019. "It felt as if I was an addict going through withdrawal," Melham said in a press release. "I didn’t know what was happening to me. I never felt that I could be so sick."[12]
7. CDC director admitted some NCV deaths have been found posthumously
CNN reported on March 11, 2020[13] that during the House Oversight Committee discussion on the NCV response, the CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield said that some deaths from NCV have been discovered posthumously. Rep. Harley Rouda asked Redfield if it’s possible that some flu patients may have been misdiagnosed and actually had coronavirus. "The standard practice is the first thing you do is test for influenza, so if they had influenza they would be positive," Redfield said.
Rouda then asked Redfield if they are doing posthumous testing. Redfield said there has been "a surveillance system of deaths from pneumonia, that the CDC has; it’s not in every city, every state, every hospital.”
Rouda followed up and asked, “So we could have some people in the United States dying for what appears to be influenza when in fact it could be the coronavirus?” Redfield replied that “some cases have actually been diagnosed that way in the United States today.” This hearing was also video recorded [14].
8. UCLA unveils that COVID-19 was spreading silently in Los Angeles last December
UCLA published a study that COVID-19 was spreading silently in Los Angeles last December [15]. Researchers from UCLA and their colleagues at the University of Washington documented an unmistakable uptick in patients seeking treatment for coughs. The increase began the week of Dec. 22, 2019, and persisted through the end of February.
“A significantly higher number of patients with respiratory complaints and diseases starting in late December 2019 and continuing through February 2020 suggests community spread of SARS-CoV-2 prior to established clinical awareness and testing capabilities,” wrote the team led by Dr. Joann Elmore, who is both an internist and professor of health policy and management at UCLA.
Hence, the NCV may have been silently spreading in California as early as last December — more than a month before the first US case was detected, a local official claims. The theory helps explain why California started getting so many cases of so-called community spread. “That means the virus is in the community already — not, as was suspected by the CDC, as only in China and being spread from contact with China.”
9. CDC and NIH studies found COVID-19 was silently infecting Americans before first cases emerged in Wuhan
Bloomberg[18], WSJ[19] and National Post[17] reported that a latest CDC study has found COVID-19 infections in the U.S. in December 2019 and weeks before the first cases were reported in China.
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found evidence of infection in 106 of 7,389 blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from residents in nine states across the U.S. between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17., according to the study published online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases[20]. The NCV infected people in the U.S. in mid-December 2019, a few weeks before it was officially identified in China and about a month earlier than public health authorities found the first U.S. case.
The findings significantly strengthen evidence suggesting the virus was spreading around the world well before public health authorities and researchers became aware, upending initial thinking about how early and quickly it emerged.
A new National Institutes of Health antibody testing study examining 24000 blood samples originally collected through its All of Us Research Program found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in five states earlier than had initially been reported[21]. These findings were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases[22]. The results expand on findings from CDC that suggested SARS-CoV-2 was present in the U.S. as far back as December 2019.
Conclusion
Owing to the high vigilance of Chinese doctors and effectiveness of Chinese early warning mechanism against infectious diseases, NCV was first discovered in Wuhan, which is the good luck for human being in misfortune. China also demonstrated effectiveness of its combating measures to contain the NCV. However, the above-mentioned Nine evidences of NCV origin-related discoveries showed definitely that NCV was not originated in Wuhan. We don’t know the exact origin of NCV yet. The global scientific community have a urgent task to work together to find out the real origin of NCV, so that human being will be able to avoid the same misfortune. In this regard, as Science Magazine expressed that Trump and US government owe Chinese an apology [5].
References
[1] https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/
[2] "COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)". ArcGIS. Johns Hopkins University.
[3] Covid-19 updates: One in 10 worldwide may have had virus, WHO says (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54422023)
[4]"Mortality Analyses". Johns Hopkins University, Coronavirus Resource Center. (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality)
[7] Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1
[9]https://coronavirus.medium.com/why-france-is-on-a-mission-to-find-patient-zero-282158b50bc0
[10]https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.26.20140731v1
[11]https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-virus-italy-december.html
[16] Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0300891620974755?s=09&
[17] https://nationalpost.com/news/world/coronavirus-silently-infecting-americans-before-first-cases-emerged-in-wuhan-cdc-study
[18] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/covid-infections-found-in-u-s-in-2019-weeks-before-china-cases
[19] https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-likely-in-u-s-in-mid-december-2019-cdc-scientists-report-11606782449
[20] https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472
[22] https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab519/6294073
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