Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample in Spain

[beijingwalker]

Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample in Spain
Nathan Allen, Inti Landauro
JUNE 27, 2020 / 1:22 AM / A DAY AGO

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday.

The discovery of virus genome presence so early in Spain, if confirmed, would imply the disease may have appeared much earlier than the scientific community thought.

The University of Barcelona team, who had been testing waste water since mid-April this year to identify potential new outbreaks, decided to also run tests on older samples.

They first found the virus was present in Barcelona on Jan. 15, 2020, 41 days before the first case was officially reported there.

Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December 2019 and found the presence of the virus genome in one of them, collected on March 12, 2019.

“The levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive,” research leader Albert Bosch was quoted as saying by the university.


The research has been submitted for a peer review.

Dr Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration told Reuters it was still early to draw definitive conclusions.

“When it’s just one result, you always want more data, more studies, more samples to confirm it and rule out a laboratory error or a methodological problem,” he said.

There was the potential for a false positive due to the virus’ similarities with other respiratory infections.

“But it’s definitely interesting, it’s suggestive,” Villalbi said.

Bosch, who is president of the Spanish Society of Virologists, said that an early detection even in January could have improved the response to the pandemic. Instead, patients were probably misdiagnosed with common flu, contributing to community transmission before measures were taken.


Prof. Gertjan Medema of the KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands, whose team began using a coronavirus test on waste water in February, suggested the Barcelona group needs to repeat the tests to confirm it is really the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Spain has recorded more than 28,000 confirmed deaths and nearly 250,000 cases of the virus so far.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...wage-sample-spanish-study-shows-idUSKBN23X2HQ

 

[beijingwalker]

That's almost a year before Wuhan outbreak..., the virus first spotted in China may because China has a better monitoring system and doesn't lump all flu like symptoms together as the common flu.

 

[beijingwalker]

The Coronavirus Was Detected In Sewage In March Of 2019, Far From Wuhan, China
Jun 26, 2020,08:38pm EDT
Eric Mack
Science

As new cases of Covid-19 reach record levels in the United States, there’s new evidence the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that causes the disease has been with us much longer than previously thought.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona say they detected the virus in sewage samples were collected in the Spanish city on March 12, 2019. That’s several months before the first cases that would lead to the current pandemic were officially identified in Wuhan, China in early December.

It’s previously been reported sewage samples suggested the coronavirus was present in Spain in mid-January of this year, over a month before the first case was confirmed there.

The team analyzed frozen waster water samples from nine different dates between January 2018 and December 2019. All the samples came back negative for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, except for low levels that were found in the March 12, 2019 sample.

It’s a little odd, to say the least, that the coronavirus popped up only once in Barcelona’s wastewater nearly a year before Spain reported its first cases.

“When it’s just one result, you always want more data, more studies, more samples to confirm it and rule out a laboratory error or a methodological problem,” Dr Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration told Reuters. “It’s definitely interesting, it’s suggestive.”

In their summary of their findings, the team makes a point to note the oft-repeated theory that some particularly rough influenza cases that were reported in the months prior to the new coronavirus emerging may have actually been Covid-19 cases.

“It has been suggested that some uncharacterized influenza cases may have masked COVID-19 cases in the 2019-2020 season,” the Barcelona researchers write.

“Those infected with COVID-19 could have been diagnosed with flu in primary care by mistake, contributing to the community transmission before the public health took measures,” adds co-author Albert Bosch in a statement. Bosch is also president of the Spanish Society of Virology.

It’s important also to note that this research has not yet been peer reviewed, which is a key part of the scientific vetting process prior to publication in a journal. However, given the need for information on the origin and spread of the pandemic, many scientists are publicly sharing and promoting their data prior to publication, but it should still be treated as preliminary and taken with a grain of salt.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericma...ch-of-2019-far-from-wuhan-china/#47b8226d12e3

 

[vi-va]

China is the Whistleblower of the world. The coronavirus definitely not originated from China. Maybe from US lab to destroy EU as well as Brexit, so that dollar can dominate the market as reserve currency.

 

[beijingwalker]

If not China, this virus can go unnoticed for years in other countries cause they don't care. China reported 7 new cases today and the whole Beijing is almost being locked down. US reports 40000 daily new cases but life goes on like nothing happens.

 

[Nan Yang]

Spanish flu 2019 revision