Coronavirus likely in the United States from December 2019: study

© Daniel Acker / Reuters
A nurse dons personal protective equipment (PPE) as she prepares to enter the room of a COVID-19 patient being treated at UW Health Teaching Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, November 18, 2020.

The coronavirus may have been present in the United States weeks earlier than scientists realized, new government research shows.

While COVID-19 cases were first identified in China in December, the United States did not report its first case until the end of January.

A study published Monday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that the virus was present in the United States as early as last December.

To come to this conclusion, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed American Red Cross blood donations collected between December 13, 2019 and January 17, 2020 and found evidence of antibodies to the coronavirus in 106 of 7389 blood donations.

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“SARS-CoV-2 infections may have been present in the United States in December 2019, earlier than previously recognized,” write the study authors. “These results also underscore the value of donated blood as a source of SARS-CoV-2 surveillance.”

© Daniel Acker / Reuters
A nurse dons personal protective equipment (PPE) as she prepares to enter the room of a COVID-19 patient being treated at UW Health Teaching Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, November 18, 2020.

From these gifts. 39 samples taken in California, Washington and Oregon between December 13 and December 16 contained antibodies. Sixty-seven samples taken from Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin in early January contained COVID-19 antibodies.

The presence of the virus in the United States in December does not mean that COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, was spreading widely in the United States at that time.

“Widespread community transmission was not likely until the end of February,” note the authors.

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Limitations of the research include the possibility of false positive antibody tests.

Additionally, donated blood is not representative of the general population, so the data cannot be extrapolated to indicate the extent of infections during the study period, or whether these infections were of origin. community or travel.

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