A vendor in Wuhan, China, was the first to be diagnosed with COVID-19. This is not a case that could have been reported by someone living miles away.
Michael Worobey is the head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona. He claims that the World Health Organization (WHO), misunderstood the initial timeline of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
He says he believes the first confirmed infection to be in a female seafood vendor at the Huanan Seafood Market who fell ill on December 11, 2019.
An earlier case of the virus infected a 41 year-old male accountant, who was located 20 miles away from the market.
The report is bound to reinvigorate the debate about whether the COVID-19 pandemic started at the market or accidentally escaped from a laboratory in the same city.
According to a new report, the COVID-19 first case was reported by a female vendor of seafood at Huanan Seafood Marketplace in Wuhan. It occurred on December 11th. Pictured: A group of workers in protective gear walks next to the Huanan Food Wholesale Market in Wuhan. March 2020
According to previous reports, the first victim was a 41-year old male accountant living 20 miles from the market (cluster B).
China first alerted the world to cases of COVID-19 when local authorities alerted the WHO to cases of ‘pneumonia of unknown causes’ on December 31, 2019.
Chinese officials reported that early cases had been linked to the Huanan Seafood wholesale market, which sold live animals.
The question of whether the virus came from animals or was made in a laboratory has been disputed.
For the report, published in the journal Science, Worobey looked at early public records of the Covid pandemic’s timeline.
Interviews with Chinese journalists and articles in medical journals are also included.
Worobey is convinced that the pattern was established by multiple reports that link at least half the early cases to the marketplace.
The oldest known case involved a 41-year old male accountant who lived 30 kilometers (30 miles) to the south of Huanan Market. He had no connections to Huanan Market.
The first time he felt sick was December 8. However, it wasn’t until December 16 that he developed COVID-19 symptoms.
Worobey stated that his initial illness was due to problems with his teeth. He had baby teeth which he kept into adulthood.
He stated that his infected status was due to community transmission.
“He thought he was infected at a hospital, possibly during his emergency dental care. He also believed he might have caught the disease on his subway commute. His symptoms started shortly after he traveled north to Huanan Market.
Because of this, he believes the first known case was a seafood vendor named Wei Guixian, who developed symptoms on December 11.
On December 8, he first felt sick. However, he did not feel better until December 16, when a COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed. Scientist who wrote this report claims that the origin of his first illness was dental problems. He had kept baby teeth into adulthood. Pictured: A man wearing walks next to optical shops on the second floor of the Huanan Seafood Market, December 2020
Experts believe the report accurately reconstructs the initial timeline of the pandemic, but it does not reveal whether or not the virus originated in a laboratory. Pictured: January 2020, Jinyintan hospital in Wuhan was evacuated by medical staff.
The New York Times was told by experts that Worobey’s reconstruction timeline is solid but doesn’t explain why the pandemic started.
“He did an outstanding job reconstructing the data available, and it is as plausible as any hypothesis,” Dr W. Ian Lipkin from Columbia University, New York told the paper.
“But we don’t know how to find out, it was two years ago. It’s still murky.”
There are still many who believe the virus leaked from a lab, a theory at first dismissed by several scientists as being nothing more than conspiracy theory.
The Wall Street Journal’s May 2021 report cited an unreleased intelligence report that described how three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology sought out hospital care November 2019 months before China revealed the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to the newspaper, this report, which includes new details about the researchers who were affected and the times they fell ill, as well as their hospitalizations, may increase the need for an investigation into whether or not the COVID-19 virus might have been able to escape from the laboratory.
Late May saw President Joe Biden order a review of COVID-19’s origins for 90 days. The report is due to be published in the latter part of this month.
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s report, it was not possible to determine if the virus had spread from an animal or human being into a laboratory.