With 25000 deaths and more in France, reports say that COVID-19 might have hit the country earlier than it was known.
On December 27th, a 42-year-old fishmonger reached the hospital in suburban Paris coughing, feverish, and facing a difficulty to breathe. This was a month before China officially mentioned about the virus.
In Europe, the woman who was sick in December must have been the first coronavirus case, doctors say. Having said, if her case is confirmed then this would be the first case in the whole continent.
Moreover, this discovery would bring a twist into the story and change the previously established chronology. The French Government is looking into this report once again and the doctors have researched this well by checking the old patient’s sample twice.
Further, the doctor mentioned that without analyzing the samples further, it still wouldn’t be clear if the man passed this virus to anyone else or this case was related to the epidemic that came later.
Here’s the catch, now if the timeline of when this virus appeared in Europe changes, then its too late to put in efforts and fight against this virus.
Since the Government didn’t call for a lockdown before 16th March, the cases must have rapidly been increasing.
So right now, they are studying the new case. It is being reviewed and accepted to get formally published by the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. This information will be able to speak about the condition of France and Europe.
Ever since there have been thousands of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Thankfully, since the French Government is stringent with rules, the cases of death have reduced in number.
At this point of time, it is essential to understand the speed at which this infection is spreading and the time to make a decision is less.
The journal that published this report is still not clear after looking at the first case.
On the other hand, if this case has started spreading from December 27th and with no information about the patients traveling to other places, by now it must have rapidly spread among people.
From the French authorities, the first official case of coronavirus was declared after three people traveled to China on Jan 24th. This was exactly 4 days after China revealed information about Corona spreading from person to person.
The patients suffering from pneumonia in France were retested and it turned out to be coronavirus.
Dr. Yves Cohen, head of intensive care at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals, in the northern suburbs of Paris, says, “There’s no doubt for us,” and one of the authors of the study in a telephone interview says “It was already there in December.”
Similarly, while cases were retested, even people who had not traveled got the virus. For instance, Hammar was tested positive even though he didn’t travel anywhere apart from Algeria last summer. His wife, however, briefly exhibited some of the symptoms – coughing, principally – of the coronavirus, Cohen said.
“We’ve got some theories,” he said. “His wife had a little cough.”
Hammar’s wife, Fatiha, who works in a supermarket near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris told French television this week that she serves customers who come directly from the airport, “with their suitcases,” she said.
There were direct flights between that airport and the one in Wuhan, China, before borders were closed.
This case cannot be directly related to France’s current outbreak without the genes being analyzed. The distinction between the epidemic wave and isolated cases are not been done correctly.
He feels that many isolated cases have kept spreading in chains. Further, Alizon feels that this epidemic that’s imported from one country to another has caused false starts, with the transmission chains that died down on their own before one of the imported cases led to an actual epidemic.
“So the question is more: How many importation events did it take to launch the epidemic wave?” he said.
Apart from China, the first case was reported on Jan 13th in Thailand. But the officials think that this virus must have spread internationally much before the cases were reported.
This similar situation was observed in France and the US, deaths were reported weeks before there was anything known about coronavirus. A model says that cases had started to spread even before they were detected.
On Tuesday, France’s health ministry said that the authorities were in contact with scientists and experts from other countries to understand how long has it taken for the virus to spread. If necessary, they would investigate it further.
“We are in permanent contact with our European and Chinese counterparts on the issue, to better understand the spread of the virus at the global level,” the ministry said.
