Chinese scientists offer new study to shift back date of Covid-19 spread in US
- Researchers use US public data to draw the conclusion but did not calculate how many cases were imported
- China has become more overt in pointing finger at the US, particularly after Biden tasked US intelligence with investigating the lab-leak theory
In the paper, which has not been peer reviewed, the authors said they used US government public data about the numbers of diagnoses and tests as well as mortality figures from March 2020, and they developed formulas to infer the probability of Covid-19 cases in the US in 2019.
They concluded there was a 50 per cent chance the first case of Covid-19 occurred in the US between August and October 2019, earlier than the official date.
“The calculation results show that the Covid-19 epidemic has a high probability of beginning to spread in the US in September 2019,” they said in the paper published on ChinaXiv.org.
It also said that based on the data from 12 representative regions in the US, a range of probable early cases could be inferred, with Rhode Island the possible site of the earliest case on April 26, 2019, and the latest in November 2019 in Delaware.