New Research Casts Doubt Coronavirus Epidemic Started At Wuhan Food Market
- New Research Casts Doubt Coronavirus Epidemic Started At Wuhan Food Market
by Tyler Durden, https://www.zerohedge.com/
Although practically all of the western media reports from the city of Wuhan have claimed that the city’s hospitals have been completely overwhelmed by cases of pneumonia as more cases of the Wuhan coronavirus are confirmed, the South China Morning Post reports that a team of researchers at Wuhan’s Jinyintan hospital have retraced the movements of the first individual who was diagnosed with the virus, and determined that he had no links to a shady seafood market selling live snakes and bats for human consumption.
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Amazingly, SCMP caveated its report by claiming that other patients among the earliest cases had “continuous exposure to the market,” which was shut down on Jan. 1 by Wuhan authorities over fears that its trade in wild animals was linked to the viral outbreak. Authorities have since banned the selling of live animals at markets.
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The researchers, seven of whom work at Wuhan’s Jinyintan hospital, designated for patients with the illness, revealed on Friday in The Lancet medical journal that symptoms of the new disease were first reported on December 1 – much earlier than the Wuhan government’s initial announcement on December 31 of 27 cases of the pneumonia-like infection.
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According to the report, the first patient had no exposure to the Huanan seafood market which was shut down on January 1 over fears – later confirmed – that the new virus was linked to its trade in wild animals. The researchers added that none of the patient’s family had developed fever or any respiratory symptoms. There was also no epidemiological link between the first patient and the later cases, they found.
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The researchers analysed data from 41 patients with confirmed infections who had showed an onset of symptoms up to January 2. Six of those patients died, putting the fatality rate of the group at 15 per cent. The researchers noted that clinical presentations of the patients greatly resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome.
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The first patient to die from the new coronavirus had continuous exposure to the market before he was admitted to hospital with a seven-day history of fever, cough and breathing difficulties, according to their report.
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