COVID-19 may have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, study suggests

A recent analysis suggests that COVID-19 may have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, which is two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan. According to the study from the Britain’s University of Kent, the researchers used the methods from conservation science to estimate that SARS-CoV-2 first appeared from October to mid-November 2019. The paper published in the PLOS Pathogens journal revealed that the most likely date for the virus’ emergence was November 17, 2019, and it had probably already spread globally by January 2020. 

China’s first official case was in December 2019 and was linked to Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market. However, now mounting evidence suggests that the original case may have emerged even earlier. In a bid to clarify the timing of the onset of the pandemic, David Roberts of the University of Kent and his colleagues repurposed a mathematical model originally developed by conservation scientists to determine the date of extinction of a species, based on recorded sightings of the species. 

For their analysis, the researchers reversed the method to determine the date when COVID-19 most likely originated, according to when some of the earliest known cases occurred in 203 countries. The study suggested that the first case occurred in China between early October and mid-November of 2019. The findings support growing evidence that the pandemic arose sooner and grew more rapidly than officially accepted.

Spread of COVID outside China 

It even identified when COVID-19 is likely to have spread to the first five countries outside of China, as well as other continents. According to the research, the first case outside of China occurred in Japan on January 3, 2020. The first case in Europe occurred in Spain on January 12, 2020. The first case in North America occurred in the United States on January 16, 2020.

Roberts said, "The method we used was originally developed by me and a colleague to date extinctions, however, here we use it to date the origination and spread of COVID-19. This novel application within the field of epidemiology offers a new opportunity to understand the emergence and spread of diseases as it only requires a small amount of data”. 

COVID-19 origin 

Meanwhile, there has been mounting controversy over how the virus first emerged in humans - whether through contact with animals at a wet market in Wuhan or leakage from The Wuhan Institute of Virology - as some have suggested. As questions continue to be raised over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US and Britain have also demanded the WHO to take a deeper look into the possible origins of COVID-19, including a new visit to China where the first human infections were detected. The demand to probe COVID-19 origin intensified after an undisclosed and controversial Wall Street report propelled conspiracies claiming three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care after they fell sick in November 2019.

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