Revealing information about the world’s first ‘patient zero’ with COVID-19

A top Chinese official may have inadvertently revealed the name, address and details of one of the first suspected COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, three weeks before the Chinese government announced it. They found the first case of the virus.

Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Photo: Daily Mail According to the Daily Mail (UK), this incredible mistake was revealed in a screenshot sent to a Chinese medical journal. The photo shows information about a 61-year-old woman, known as “patient Su”, who lives about a mile from one of Wuhan’s main virus research facilities. The woman was also near a train station along the high-speed rail line that played a key role in spreading the virus around the city of 11 million people. This latest finding was revealed through an interview by a medical journal with the scientist tasked with compiling China’s official data on cases. In an interview with Health Times, Yu Chuanhua, Professor of Biostatistics at Wuhan University, said there were 47,000 confirmed and suspected cases on the national database of COVID-19 by the end of the year. February 2020. Among these, there was a death of a patient at the end of September 2019. “There is data on a patient who became ill on September 29. The data shows that the patient has not been given a nucleic test and a clinical diagnosis. It is possible that this is a suspected case of COVID-19. The patient died. This data has not been confirmed,” added Mr. Yu. The data also shows that two other suspected COVID-19 cases were reported to doctors in Wuhan on November 14 and November 21, 2019, along with several other cases prior to December 8, the period. China informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of the first cases. Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Hubei Province, China. Photo: AP The Health Times article includes screenshots of information of two suspected COVID-19 cases in November 2019 on the database of Professor Yu. Although the patient’s personal details have been obscured, some information can still be seen, including the hospital name and home address. Information shows that patient Su has been treated at Rongjun hospital in Wuhan. Both the home address and the hospital where this patient is being treated are in Hongshan District, Wuhan City, where many studies on SARS-CoV-2 virus related to bats have been conducted in laboratories. experience. The area where patient Su lives and is treated is more than 20 kilometers from the Huanan seafood market, which Beijing initially believed to be the source of the COVID-19 infection. The second patient discovered in November 2019 is a 62-year-old man named Wang, who is being treated at Hanyang Hospital. However, Professor Yu has requested that the information published in the newspaper be retracted, claiming that the dates were entered incorrectly and that all other suspected cases before December 8, 2019 need further verification. . Wuhan Institute of Virology, Hubei Province, China. Photo: EPA This detail was discovered by Gilles Demaneuf, a member of the Drastic digital operations team, who discovered many facts that are said to contradict the theory that COVID-19 is an infectious disease from animals. Chinese objects. “We were able to accurately determine the name, age, and address of the suspected COVID-19 case very early, almost a month before the first case was officially announced. This address is right next to metro line 2 and not far from the hospital that treated some of the other first cases,” Demaneuf said. The railway system, which carries 1 million people a day, is linked to a seafood market, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and an international airport, he said. Demaneuf argues that these new findings show that more clues can be accessed if there are continued and determined efforts to evaluate the hypothesis that the virus leaked from the laboratory. The Wall Street Journal last week also cited a US intelligence report that said three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized for medical care in November 2019, a few months before China announced it. announced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in this country. However, China has denied the above information. Beijing insists the WHO-led investigation team concluded after a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in February that the possibility of a virus leak from the laboratory was “extremely unlikely”.