The coronavirus was already circulating in the United States in November 2019, a new study says. That is weeks earlier than the moment in January when the first official infection was detected.
The U.S. Health Centers (NIH) examined 24,000 blood samples taken from volunteers between January 2 and March 18, 2020. Nine of them were found to have antibodies against Covid-19 in their blood. Two of the positive cases donated blood on January 7 and 8. That would mean that they were already infected in December. Plus, they weren’t from New York or Seattle where the virus first emerged.
“The antibody tests allow us to better understand the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States during the early days of the epidemic, when testing was limited,” said lead researcher Keri Althoff, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California. Johns Hopkins University. The American health service CDC previously concluded that the corona virus must have been in the US by the end of 2019.
