BLAMING THE WRONG WOGS:

Some studies suggest that the new SARS-CoV-2 virus had been spreading for several weeks or even months before it was discovered in Wuhan in late December 2019.

In China, according to the South China Morning Post, there had already been a first confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2 in mid-November.  However, this does not mean that the virus necessarily originated in China. 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge had published a study in April 2020 suggesting that the pandemic most likely began between September and early December 2019 ― either in China or a neighboring country. 

But traces of the novel pathogen were also found in stored wastewater samples from Brazil and Italy that had already been collected in November and December 2019, respectively. In Italy, antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 were also found in blood samples from participants in a lung cancer screening program.  Astonishingly, some of the blood samples had already been collected in September 2019, others in February 2020. There was some uncertainty about the findings,  however. 

The fact that the virus was already detected sporadically in Europe in the late fall of 2019 and in China from mid-November does not allow any reliable conclusions to be drawn about the origin of the pandemic. It merely shows how quickly a highly aggressive virus can spread across the world. 

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