Researchers in China isolated and mapped the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world. This only appeared on: Wall Street Magazineafter reviewing some documents the U.S. Surgeon General obtained from a House committee. According to this wsjWhile a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded a nearly complete sequence of the structure of Covid to an American government-run database on December 28, 2019, China shared the sequence of the virus with the World Health Organization (WHO) only on January 11. 2020. These delays and shadows of early 2020 meant that the response to the emerging pandemic was slow to roll out.
By the time researcher Lili Ren of the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing had already mapped the virus, Chinese authorities were still publicly describing the outbreak in Wuhan as a viral pneumonia of “unknown cause” and had not yet shut down the local livestock wholesale market. The place where one of the first outbreaks of Covid-19 occurred. The newspaper states that this new information does not shed light on the debate about whether the coronavirus emerged from an infected animal or a laboratory leak, but suggests that the world does not yet have a full explanation of the origin of the epidemic.
The extra two weeks could still be vital in helping the international medical community determine how Covid-19 spreads, develop medical defenses and launch a possible vaccine, experts say. In late 2019, scientists and governments around the world were racing to understand the mysterious disease they would eventually call Covid-19, which would kill millions of people.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
