France: Hospital discovers COVID-19 case from December after retesting samples

A French hospital has discovered that it treated a COVID-19 patient as early as December 27, almost a month before the government confirmed its first cases. Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told a news channel that scientists retested samples of 24 flu patients and one of them tested positive for COVID-19.

France has reported nearly 170,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and over 25,000 deaths due to the infection so far. The European nation had officially reported its first three COVID-19 cases on January 24 which included two patients from Paris and one from the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

Cohen said that it is still too early to confirm whether the patient who tested positive for coronavirus was “patient zero” of France. He added that the patient was sick for 15 days and infected his two children, but not his wife who works at a supermarket. He speculated whether the patient’s wife, who worked close to colleagues of Chinese origin, was asymptomatic.

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Similar case in the US

Finding the “patient zero” has proved to be an enormous challenge for authorities to understand the reason and pattern of the outbreak. Recently, a top US health official revealed that two people died from coronavirus three weeks before the country officially reported its first death from the infection.

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Dr Sara Cody, health director in Northern California’s Santa Clara County, reportedly said that the authorities failed to record the COVID-19 death due to lack of testing and clarity over who should be tested. Public Health Department of Santa Clara County said in a statement that the Medical Examiner-Coroner received confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 21 regarding the earliest-known deaths. 

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