CORONAVIRUS was already in Europe as early as December, a month before the outbreak was known, new tests have proven.
A French hospital has retested old samples from pneumonia patients and discovered it treated a man who had Covid-19 on December 27 - nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.
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Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.
He said: "Of the 24, we had one who was positive for Covid-19 on December 27."
The samples had all initially been collected to detect flu using PCR tests.
The same screening process can also be used to detect the presence of Covid-19 in patients infected at the time the sample is collected.
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Each sample at the hospital was retested several times to ensure there were no errors, Mr Cohen added.
He is now calling for other negative test samples from the same period to be reviewed - adding that he has reported the case to the regional health authorities.
France confirmed its first three coronavirus cases on January 24 - including two patients in Paris and one in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.
Mr Cohen said it was too early to know if the patient whose December 27 test was Covid-19 positive is France's "patient zero".
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He said the patient had survived and that an investigation to trace the first contamination has been carried out.
Knowing who the first person who tested positive for the virus was is critical to understanding how it spread.
Mr Cohen said: "He was sick for 15 days and infected his two children, but not his wife, who works in a supermarket.
"He was amazed, he didn't understand how he had been infected. We put the puzzle together and he had not made any trips. The only contact that he had was with his wife."
'PATIENT ZERO'
The man's wife worked alongside a Sushi stand, close to colleagues of Chinese origin, Mr Cohen said.
It was not clear whether those colleagues had travelled to China, and the local health authority should investigate, he added.
Mr Cohen said: "We're wondering whether she was asymptomatic.
"He may be the 'patient zero', but perhaps there are others in other regions. All the negative PCRs for pneumonia must be tested again. The virus was probably circulating (then)."
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It comes as France is planning to end the national lockdown on May 11 - with schools gradually reopening and people going back to work for the first time in almost two months.
President Emmanuel Macron said: "May 11 will not be the passage to normal life.
"There will be a recovery that will need to be reorganised.
"There will be several phases and May 11 will be one of them."
France has reported 169,462 coronavirus cases, with 25,201 deaths confirmed.
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Europe is suffering its worst financial crisis since World War II as a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak.
Business activities, from hotels and restaurants to construction and manufacturing, have been frozen by shutdowns aimed at preventing the bug’s spread.
The French economy shrank 5.8 per cent – the most since the country’s statistics agency began keeping the figures in 1949 – while Italy’s economy went down by 4.7 per cent.
Millions of workers are still being supported by temporary programmes under which governments pay most of their salaries in return for companies agreeing not to lay people off.
But there are no guarantees how long these deals will last, or what will happen to people’s jobs when they end.
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The first confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK were reported on January 29, when two Chinese nationals fell ill in York.
On February 6, a British businessman in Brighton was diagnosed with the virus after catching it in Singapore.
The total number of cases recorded in the UK today hit 190,584 after 3,985 additional cases were reported - with 28,734 deaths confirmed.
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZXN1bi5jby51ay9uZXdzLzExNTQ4NTc1L2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLW91dGJyZWFrLWV1cm9wZS1kZWNlbWJlci1mcmFuY2UtaG9zcGl0YWwtY292aWQtMTktcGF0aWVudC_SAXFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVzdW4uY28udWsvbmV3cy8xMTU0ODU3NS9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1vdXRicmVhay1ldXJvcGUtZGVjZW1iZXItZnJhbmNlLWhvc3BpdGFsLWNvdmlkLTE5LXBhdGllbnQvYW1wLw?oc=5
2020-05-04 22:47:59Z
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