Finding coronavirus’ patient zero; and a guilty bat
Original article from CBS News by Margaret Brennan & Camilla Schick, 2020
Tracking down COVID-19‘s patient zero and how that person first contracted the coronavirus may take years, especially as U.S.-China relations tumble to a new low.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the details of patient zero are “in the possession of only the Chinese Communist Party.” Beijing denies any such cover-up. That heightened tension is complicating rather than helping researchers’ efforts to collaborate with Chinese scientists to find answers. The ongoing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 also make it impossible for Americans to do on-the-ground research.
U.S. medical experts tell CBS News the virus may actually have been circulating among humans for some time before the late 2019 Wuhan outbreak. The origin of the COVID-19 virus — SARS-CoV-2 — could be determined by collecting blood samples from different parts of China that had been drawn and stored in the country prior to the winter of 2019, according to Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, and then testing them for antibodies to see if the virus was present in another area before the devastating Wuhan outbreak.