WHO investigators find signs of wider original Covid-19 outbreak – The World Health Organization (WHO) investigators set up to investigate the origins of coronavirus in China have a potentially huge discovery showing that the outbreak was much wider in Wuhan in December 2019 than previously thought. This is particularly not a huge surprise to a lot of experts who have been sceptical about the Chinese government handling of the pandemic.
The WHO investigators are now urgently seeking access to hundreds of thousands of blood samples from the city that China has not so far let them examine.
The WHO mission lead investigator, Peter Ben Embarek, told reporters that the mission had found several signs of the more wide-ranging 2019 spread, and have established for the first time there were over a dozen strains of the coronavirus in Wuhan already in December 2019.
According to Embarek; the mission – comprises of 17 WHO scientists and 17 Chinese counterpart. So far, the team have broadened the type of virus genetic material they examined from early coronavirus cases from December 2019.
This has allowed them to look at partial genetic samples, rather than just complete ones, and they were able to gather for the first time, 13 different genetic sequences of the SARS-COV-2 virus from December 2019.
Furthermore, he pointed out that if the sequences were examined with wider patient data in China across 2019, it could potentially provide valuable clues about the geography and timing of the outbreak before that December.
Finally, with the slow emergence of more detailed data gathered on the WHO’s long-awaited trip into China, they are growing concerns by other scientists studying the origins of the disease that it may have been spreading in China long before it was officially made public by the Chinese government in mid-December.