3 ms·

I think it is fairly obvious that this virus could have circulated considerably earlier than the first confirmed cases in Wuhan mid November 2020, given its nat

I think it is fairly obvious that this virus could have circulated considerably earlier than the first confirmed cases in Wuhan mid November 2020, given its nature of asymptomic spread and form of disease which easily could be mistaken for something else. The work with blood sample analysis should be done all over the planet and its range should be broadened to samples earlier than January 2020.

floxy 5y ago
>given its nature of asymptomatic spread Does anyone have a pointer to the latest information on asymptomatic spread? This is the latest thing I've found, and it doesn't seem to think asymptomatic spreading is likely. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
- mrfusion 5y ago
  Agreed. This is the big study, a city wide screening in Wuhan found not a single documented case: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w And beyond that this is a meta-analysis of 54 studies showing near 0 presymptomatic/asymptomatic rate: https://alachuachronicle.com/university-of-florida-researchers-find-no-asymptomatic-spread/ https://alachuachronicle.com/university-of-florida-researche...
mmmrtl 5y ago
You can estimate the date of the outbreak's origin with phylodynamics, using the diversity of circulating SARS-CoV-2 and its mutation rate to estimate the time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) as 27.11.2019 [CI 07.11.2019 - 11.12.2019]. "Considerably earlier" doesn't fit the evidence https://virological.org/t/update-2-evolutionary-epidemiological-analysis-of-128-genomes/423 https://virological.org/t/update-2-evolutionary-epidemiologi...
- throwaway4good 5y ago
  It could have been spreading somewhere else, undetected or mistaken for something else.
- qwerty1234599 5y ago
  It's possible that a mutation emerged in november 2019 that pushed the R number up. A "mild" form of the virus could very easily have lingered in China/SEA for years.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Definitely, especially if the virus was a zoonotic leak and was poorly adapted to humans, perhaps with R only slightly above 1 until it adapted.

floxy 5y ago

>given its nature of asymptomatic spread Does anyone have a pointer to the latest information on asymptomatic spread? This is the latest thing I've found, and it doesn't seem to think asymptomatic spreading is likely. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

mrfusion 5y ago
Agreed. This is the big study, a city wide screening in Wuhan found not a single documented case: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w And beyond that this is a meta-analysis of 54 studies showing near 0 presymptomatic/asymptomatic rate: https://alachuachronicle.com/university-of-florida-researchers-find-no-asymptomatic-spread/ https://alachuachronicle.com/university-of-florida-researche...

mmmrtl 5y ago

You can estimate the date of the outbreak's origin with phylodynamics, using the diversity of circulating SARS-CoV-2 and its mutation rate to estimate the time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) as 27.11.2019 [CI 07.11.2019 - 11.12.2019]. "Considerably earlier" doesn't fit the evidence https://virological.org/t/update-2-evolutionary-epidemiological-analysis-of-128-genomes/423 https://virological.org/t/update-2-evolutionary-epidemiologi...

throwaway4good 5y ago
It could have been spreading somewhere else, undetected or mistaken for something else.
qwerty1234599 5y ago
It's possible that a mutation emerged in november 2019 that pushed the R number up. A "mild" form of the virus could very easily have lingered in China/SEA for years.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Definitely, especially if the virus was a zoonotic leak and was poorly adapted to humans, perhaps with R only slightly above 1 until it adapted.