A groundbreaking study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has unveiled evidence suggesting that COVID-19 may have entered the United States as early as December 2019, significantly earlier than the first documented case in the country.
Published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the study supports previous research indicating that the virus was circulating in the U.S. during the initial months of 2020. Scientists discovered that a volunteer from Illinois, who donated blood on January 7, 2020, tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies as part of an unrelated study.
Given that antibodies typically take about 14 days to develop, this finding implies that the virus might have been present in Illinois in late December 2019. This challenges the prevailing timeline, as the first reported U.S. infection was confirmed on January 20, 2020, in Washington state—a patient who had recently traveled from Wuhan, China.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not recognize community spread of the virus until February 26, 2020. The NIH study’s revelations highlight the possibility of undetected transmission occurring weeks before official acknowledgment, reshaping our understanding of the pandemic’s timeline in the United States.
These insights are crucial for public health officials, researchers, and policymakers aiming to comprehend the early spread of COVID-19. They underscore the importance of retrospective studies and the need for vigilant surveillance systems to detect emerging infectious diseases promptly.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
