https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122013068

Many of you may recall a study from over two years ago which found traces of covid RNA in sewage water in Lombardy, Italy.

This is not that study. This is a study released this month which confirms those earlier findings. A new strain which predates the Wuhan alpha strain was sequenced, labeled proCoV2.

Abstract

As a reference laboratory for measles and rubella surveillance in Lombardy, we evaluated the association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and measles-like syndromes, providing preliminary evidence for undetected early circulation of SARS-CoV-2. Overall, 435 samples from 156 cases were investigated.

RNA from oropharyngeal swabs (N = 148) and urine (N = 141) was screened with four hemi-nested PCRs and molecular evidence for SARS-CoV-2 infection was found in 13 subjects. Two of the positive patients were from the pandemic period (2/12, 16.7%, March 2020–March 2021) and 11 were from the pre-pandemic period (11/44, 25%, August 2019–February 2020).

Sera (N = 146) were tested for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG, IgM, and IgA antibodies. Five of the RNA-positive individuals also had detectable anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. No strong evidence of infection was found in samples collected between August 2018 and July 2019 from 100 patients. The earliest sample with evidence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA was from September 12, 2019, and the positive patient was also positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (IgG and IgM).

Mutations typical of B.1 strains previously reported to have emerged in January 2020 (C3037T, C14408T, and A23403G), were identified in samples collected as early as October 2019 in Lombardy. One of these mutations (C14408T) was also identified among sequences downloaded from public databases that were obtained by others from samples collected in Brazil in November 2019.

We conclude that a SARS-CoV-2 progenitor capable of producing a measles-like syndrome may have emerged in late June-late July 2019 and that viruses with mutations characterizing B.1 strain may have been spreading globally before the first Wuhan outbreak.

Our findings should be complemented by high-throughput sequencing to obtain additional sequence information. We highlight the importance of retrospective surveillance studies in understanding the early dynamics of COVID-19 spread and we encourage other groups to perform retrospective investigations to seek confirmatory proofs of early SARS-CoV-2 circulation.

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    This paragraph from the introduction is a good summary of all the evidence for the virus predating Wuhan.

    Several lines of evidence suggest that SARS-CoV-2 had already been spreading unnoticed for some time prior to being recognized. In fact, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in wastewaters in Northern Italy in late December 2019 (La Rosa et al., 2021) and in Brazil in November 2019 (Fongaro et al., 2021), and there is some indirect evidence of 2019 infections through antibody detection in France (Carrat et al., 2021), Italy (Apolone et al., 2020; Montomoli et al., 2022), UK (Ng et al., 2020), the USA (Basavaraju et al., 2021), and Angola (Paixao et al., 2022). In addition, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected as early as December 2019 in a respiratory sample from a French patient hospitalized for haemoptysis (Deslandes et al., 2020), in the oropharyngeal swab from a child from Milan (Lombardy) with suspected measles (Amendola et al., 2021), and in the blood and lungs of a patients that died in Milan because of acute circulatory insufficiency (Lai et al., 2022). Finally, viral antigens and RNA were detected in paraffin-preserved skin biopsies of a woman with dermatosis in November 2019 in Milan (Gianotti et al., 2021).

    • TrashGoblin [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It sounds from this like SARS-CoV-2 was already more-or-less worldwide at low levels before the Wuhan outbreak that led to it being recognized.

      • FlakesBongler [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Anecdotal, I know, but my partner had a mystery respiratory illness in the early months of 2019

        Basically she was sick for about 15 weeks with all the symptoms of Covid (including loss of smell and taste), but the most information we were able to get out of any doctors was that "People kept coming in with her exact symptoms for weeks, but that they didn't know what it was because it was coming negative for flu and strep" and that was after we went to five different places

        One of the scariest moments of my life, wouldn't doubt for a second our medical system didn't know its ass from its head about this until China figured it out

        • CommunistBear [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Validating my belief that even if covid definitively started in the US, our healthcare system is so garbage it never would have been caught in the first place.

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        2 years ago

        :sadness-abysmal: was there ever any actual chance of containing it