Coronavirus In France Before First Case Identified In China?
[guest post by Dana]
This certainly changes the coronavirus timeline:
Coronavirus appears to have infected people in France weeks before the disease was detected in Europe and possibly before the first cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were announced in China in December, according to scientists and doctors who have analysed virus samples.
Retesting of samples from patients with influenza-like symptoms at a hospital north of Paris found one that tested positive for coronavirus from the end of last year, a finding described in a paper for the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents published this week.
“We had a positive Covid-19 case on December 27 who was hospitalised with us at Jean-Verdier [hospital],” Yves Cohen, head of intensive care for two hospitals in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, told France’s BFMTV. He was one of the contributors to the paper.
“It’s not surprising when you consider that the World Health Organization has announced that it was circulating in China from December 8 at least. Given the amount of travel, it’s normal that the virus appeared quickly in France.”
The report goes on to note that on February 15, France reported its first COVID-19 death. The victim was a Chinese tourist who arrived in France on January 25.
More:
The French Covid-19 patient, whose infection was confirmed with two separate types of genetic test, was a 42-year-old man born in Algeria who had not travelled abroad since July 2019 but one of whose children had earlier reported influenza-like symptoms. The father recovered.
“Identifying the first infected patient is of great epidemiological interest as it changes dramatically our knowledge regarding Sars-Cov-2 and its spreading in the country,” the paper said. “Moreover, the absence of a link [from the patient] with China and the lack of recent travel suggest that the disease was already spreading among the French population at the end of December 2019.”
In the meantime, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to hold fast to his claim that the novel coronavirus originally infected a human in a lab in China:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo doubled down on his assertion that there’s “significant evidence” the novel coronavirus first infected a human in a biomedical laboratory in China, even after other senior U.S. officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, have said scientific evidence suggests otherwise.
Pressed on his comment…that the U.S. has “enormous evidence” supporting the lab theory, the top U.S. diplomat lashed out at reporters and said his position was “entirely consistent” with Fauci and others — instead, a difference in “confidence.”
“I’m not sure what it is about that grammar that you can’t get. We don’t have certainty, and there’s significant evidence that this came from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true,”
On Monday, Dr. Fauci countered Pompeo’s claims, saying that the scientific evidence “strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature,” dismissing the unproven theory that it first infected a human being in a lab.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement saying that they were in agreement that the “wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified…” They will, however, keep investigating the matter.
Also, Pompeo did not tell reporters what the “significant evidence” was. Moreover, the report notes that Pompeo “brushed aside any differences with Fauci or Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who said Tuesday the U.S. doesn’t “have conclusive evidence on any of that.”
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (0feb77) — 5/6/2020 @ 1:37 pmLooks like some will do anything to protect communist china even here.
asset (fb91bf) — 5/6/2020 @ 1:39 pmI wonder if China will push this narrative. It’s those Frenchies with their weird eating habits! Snails and stuff!
norcal (a5428a) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:01 pmWho would’ve thought lefty FT would jump to China’s rescue. I wonder what the “Five Eyes Report” (product of intel svcs of US/UK/Canada/Australia/New Zealand) has found?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:09 pmThat the China lab conspiracy delusion is just “fake news”
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:21 pmPompeo’s and Fauci’s statements can both be true: (1) The “evolved in nature” virus could’ve been obtained by the lab from a wet market or other source, (2) ground-zero for the spread of the virus was the lab, and (3) it wasn’t modified or bio-engineered by the Chinese.
Paul Montagu (704822) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:24 pmWe’re still not for-sure on what the Chinese knew and when they knew it.
The Guardian? Ha!
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/bombshell-dossier-lays-out-case-against-chinese-bat-virus-program/news-story/55add857058731c9c71c0e96ad17da60
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:26 pmWe need The Truth about the origins and about China’s actions and inactions. Acts of War should be recognized as such if/when they occur.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:30 pmWhoever wrote that Telegraph article apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of “chimeric”.
Kishnevi (1cc50f) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:39 pmIt’s too bad the current administration’s credibility makes W look good.
Time123 (441f53) — 5/6/2020 @ 3:09 pmIt’s too bad the current administration’s credibility makes W look good.
So… you are a leftwing Democrat. I suspected as much.
I didn’t know GWB’s credibility was in question.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/6/2020 @ 3:19 pmAfter the assertion that Iraq’s WMD posed a threat to US security was shown to be erroneous our credibility about that type of thing took a hit.
I don’t think that point of view is entirely a left wing one. I recall Trump being pretty critical about it when he ran for office. I think a number of small gov conservatives were pretty annoyed by it.
But let me be plain. It’s unfortunate that the current administration is to dishonest we can’t take these assertions seriously.
Time123 (66d88c) — 5/6/2020 @ 3:29 pmCould we possibly imagine a situation where it came from Haskell County Kansas and escaped to China or France, that Trump wouldn’t do everything in his power to punt on responsibility?
I mean, he’s punting on responsibility now, and we know it didn’t originate here. At this point, does it really matter? You have to deal with reality as it exists, it’s here, now, so you’d think the primary goal would be to do things like prioritize testing or PPE, or social distancing, or minimizing spread, all things the administration is failing at, and in some cases is actively trying to make it worse.
China saw what was happening, minimized the impact so they could hoard supplies. That’s obvious, and US intelligence saw it too, told people, but was ignored because Trump trusted Xi, as Trump himself said, over and over, because he wanted a trade deal. Xi said good, we need masks, and ventilators, and we’ll convince this dumdumb to actively hurt his own country to help China.
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 5/6/2020 @ 3:38 pmhahaha
i can see this guy sitting in a corner
suspecting
Dustin (e5f6c3) — 5/6/2020 @ 3:40 pmNever believe a MSM paraphrase of what anyone in the Trump administration says. This article quotes some words and ONE sentence. Who knows what Pompeo actually said – IN CONTEXT?
rcocean (1a839e) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:19 pmI mean, if there was a recording or something by reading the source material…nah…
Colonel Klink (Ret) (305827) — 5/6/2020 @ 6:48 pmHuh? What happened to going where good science…not what some blowhard says…takes us?
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:02 pm18. I question how much “good science” has been part of CoViD-19 policy from the beginning.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:04 pmSure, Gryph. We ALLLLLL know.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/6/2020 @ 7:23 pmCan someone tell me why this isn’t getting more attention:
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
Fauci’s department was funding a study of corona viruses in bats since 2014. In 2019 the study changed to make the virus more deadly in order to study it further. This article doesn’t mention it but in 2018 the US embassy visited this lab and reported that they weren’t following correct safety protocols. So the funding was cut off for a bit.
This is why Fauci is pushing that it came from nature. His reputation is on the line for not alerting everyone to this issue beforehand.
anounymouse (e2ed1b) — 5/7/2020 @ 2:52 am20. It doesn’t fit the “…but safety!” narrative.
Gryph (08c844) — 5/7/2020 @ 5:40 amIt just amazes me how everyone is just ignoring the elephant in the room. This is how conspiracies get started. Ten years from now I’ll be telling someone “You know how corona virus started? The US government paid for a study in China.” Someone: “What? That’s not possible. That’s a conspiracy.”
anounymouse (e2ed1b) — 5/8/2020 @ 2:44 amYour link doesn’t work and when I Googled it, the story does not say what you say it says. But you are telling the truth about one thing: You are pushing a fake conspiracy theory.
nk (1d9030) — 5/8/2020 @ 5:39 amIt’s not really before the first case was in China. They had a series of cases starting November 17 (of course no connection with the wet market) and that was probably not the very beginning.
And the first chains of transmission in Europe may have died out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/europe/france-coronavirus-timeline.html
6. Paul Montagu (704822) — 5/6/2020 @ 2:24 pm
They wouldn’t have collected it from a wet market, but in the field hundreds and maybe more than a thousand miles away from Wuhan.
The United States, through Dr. Fauci I heard, was actually helping to fund research on bat viruses in China. (well, you want to know about what could be the next disease to come out of China.)
and the government of China wants to keep it that way.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/8/2020 @ 4:43 pmA second case detected in the white House – Katie Miller, VP Pence’s press secretary. She married immigration hardliner Stephen Miller in Feb at the Trump hotel in Washington.
The only response by the WH s more frequent testing.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump says that, even without a vaccine, the virus will go away and we’ll never bsee it again.
(obviously analogizing it to the Saanish flu, which killed his grandfather in 1918)
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/8/2020 @ 4:48 pm20. 23. This link works and appears to be identical to the @ #20.
https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741
This apparently was what Mark Simone was referring to WOR radio. (He’s not terribly accurate but he’s not 100% wrong either))
Since it is from Newsweek, which somehow, through different ownerships, and a cessation and then resumption of the print edition, hasn’t changed its character in literally decades, it is probably a little bit off from the truth, although maybe containing some clues to the truth, clues which some which people might know anyway. But only to steer you off in the wrong direction.
Indeed they made one correction to this article dated April 28:
So the Wuhan lab wasn’t, in effect, being paid by the United States to do anything, but just tried to collect a little money.
One thing unanswered here by Newsweek, is:
Does the virus that came out of Wuhan actually contain any gain of function (whatever that actually is – not explained here) genetically engineered addition?
Since it has been sequenced repeatedly outside of China, the answer to that should be known.
The research Newsweek talks about, which Newsweek is not sure really was done – and if it was done – was part of the project the U.S. backed, cannot e called genetic engineering.
In other words, trying to get it to naturally mutate. By getting it to adapt to another animal, which might be easier to keep in a lab.
Also, NIH approved two influenza research projects, nt coronavirus projects, “that used gain of function methods.”
This is not, however, the project Newsweek is writing about.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/9/2020 @ 7:12 pmThis was the NIH coronavirus project:
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/9/2020 @ 7:21 pm