The study is based on satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan where the disease was first identified in late 2019, and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as ‘cough’ and ‘diarrhoea’.
Medical workers taking swab samples from residents to be tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus in a street in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. (Photo: AFP)
The novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 might have been spreading in China as early as August 2019, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data.
However, China has dismissed the study as “ridiculous”.
“Increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in December 2019,” the research stated according to a report in Reuters.
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The study is based on satellite imagery of hospital parking lots in Wuhan where the disease was first identified in late 2019, and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as “cough” and “diarrhoea”.
The Harvard Medical School research has stated that although it cannot be confirmed if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, their evidence suggests that the virus emerged much before identification at the Huanan Seafood market.
“These findings also corroborate the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally in southern China and was potentially already circulating at the time of the Wuhan cluster,” according to the research.
It showed a steep increase in hospital car park occupancy in August 2019.
Reacting on the research, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, “I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume.”.
Earlier in May, Chinese scientists came up with an absolutely new theory that the COVID-19 virus may not have its origin in the Wuhan seafood market, while revealing that new evidence suggests “multiple origins of the transmission of the virus”.
Earlier, the Chinese study into the origin of the COVID-19 virus has suggested that the virus, which caused havoc on the globe, had its origin in the famous Huanan seafood market in Wuhan. However, the US, especially its President Donald Trump, was not convinced by the claims of China on the origin of the virus.
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