(Washington) The first case of COVID-19 identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and notably presented as such by a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), was actually dated a few days later, according to the article by an eminent scientist published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science.
Instead of being a man who has never been to the Wuhan animal market, the status of the first known case of COVID-19 therefore goes to a saleswoman who worked in this market, according to virologist Michael Worobey.
For him, this data, as well as the analysis of the very first cases of COVID-19 in the city, clearly tip the scales towards an animal origin of the virus.
The debate has raged since the start of the pandemic between experts, who are still seeking two years later to unravel the mystery of the origin of the virus, in the absence of definitive evidence.
Michael Worobey himself belonged to the fifteen experts who published in mid-May an article in the journal Science calling for serious consideration of the hypothesis of a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan.
He writes today that his research “provides strong evidence for an origin of the pandemic via a living animal” from this market.
One of the criticisms of this theory was based on the following argument: since the health authorities alerted to cases of a suspicious disease linked to the market as early as December 30, 2019, a bias would have been introduced, leading to the identification of more cases there than elsewhere, attention being drawn to it.
To get around this bias, Michael Worobey analyzed the cases reported by two hospitals before the alert was raised. However, these cases are also largely linked to the market, and those which are not are nevertheless geographically concentrated around it.
“In this city of 11 million inhabitants, half of the first cases are linked to a place the size of a football field”, noted Michael Worobey, interviewed by the New York Times. “It becomes very difficult to explain this trend if the epidemic has not started in this market. ”
Another criticism was based on the fact that the first case identified was unrelated to the market. But while the WHO report claimed he had been ill from Dec.8, he actually was only ill on Dec. 16, according to the researcher. A deduction made from a video interview found, a case described in a scientific article and a hospital medical record that coincides with this 41-year-old man.
The first known case thus becomes that of a woman who fell ill on December 11, a seller in this market.
Asked by the New York Times, Peter Daszak, who was among the experts sent by the WHO to Wuhan in January 2021, admitted that “the date of December 8 was a mistake”.