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.
He didn't report it to the media, he talked about it on Slack with some of his colleagues, and got reminded by the cops not to do that.
IIRC he even got warned first by his job, fucked up again and then got warned by officials and apologized/agreed he was wrong to do so once the panic started. I remember (but couldn't confidently say I sourced it reliably) when he died (of covid, while treating people with covid) he was literally pro-party and wearing party badges on his hospital clothes.
Edit: There's also every chance I'm conflating multiple things or wrong or was in a fever dream with italian covid so take my word with literally pasta water that tastes like ocean amounts of grains of salt.
He was a CPC member, which is part of the reason why he got a reprimand, because if you're a Party member you are held to a higher standard of conduct. But yeah even if the word didn't get out and threaten a panic he was discussing patient details which is a pretty big violation.
But I remember looking into the badge thing, and it seems that that was a drawing of him (that might have been based on a photo but I couldn't find it), which a couple shit newspapers like the Daily Mail used while literally airbrushing out his CPC pin.
AFAIK on balance he's celebrated in China now as the face of the first responders who were lost in the early days of the pandemic, regardless of whatever mistakes he made.
Fair enough that all makes more sense than my memories of the event while still being completely logical as to how my recollection skewed. I'm pretty sure I only ever heard about the badge/pin thing BECAUSE the papers at the time being shitty and removing them came up so that makes sense.