Covid was circulating in five US states as early as December 2019, new research suggests
The Covid-19 virus was circulating in the United States in multiple states as early as December 2019, weeks ahead of the first reported case, according to a new research study by the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists analysing blood samples from the NIH’s “All of Us” research program, which was developed to advance “precision medicine” by gathering health data of a diverse group of people, discovered nine people who tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies.
Seven of the recorded people gave blood in five states – Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – prior to the first recorded Covid-19 case.
The report, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases Tuesday, noted that seven of the nine people were racial minorities, with five of the subjects Black and two who were “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish.” Some of these subjects experienced mild Covid-19 symptoms.
The earliest recorded blood samples were taken from Illinois and Massachusetts on 7 January, 2020 and 8 January, 2020, respectively, the researchers said.
Typically Covid-19 antibodies take about 14 days to develop in someone, the report noted, which “suggests the virus may have been present in Illinois as early as 24 December, 2019.”
This suggests that the timeline for when Covid-19 first entered the United States could be different from what scientists and researchers initially estimated.
The first case of a coronavirus infection in the country was recorded on 20 January, 2020, after a patient in Everett, Washington, experienced symptoms from the novel virus on 14 January. This patient had previously travelled to Wuhan, China – where Covid-19 was believed to have originated.
This is a developing story.
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