Some social media reports claim that the US began the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic..
There have been two basic claims.
One is that two people, who died in the United States in early January 2020, were infected with Covid-19 A/B, but were misdiagnosed with just the Flu. They had no overseas travel so must have contracted it from Americans.
Another is that five US soldiers in WuHan had similar Covid-19 symptoms in October 2019, and must have given the virus to the Chinese.
The first claim is that two people, who died in the United States in early January 2020, were infected with Covid-19 A/B, and must have started the whole thing.
These January 2020 cases in the US did not need to have had overseas travel to catch it in the US. They could have caught to from anyone that had arrived in the US from anywhere in the world.
The first case of someone in China suffering from Covid-19 can be traced back to 17 November 2019. (First Covid-19 case happened in November, China government records show – report)
This was two months before the January 2020 cases in the United States.
The United States limited air travel from China at the end of January 2020.
Many people, Chinese or Americans etc., travelling to the US from China between about 17 November 2019 and January 2020 could have brought the virus to the US. In fact it didn’t end in January 2020.
The second claim is that five US soldiers in WuHan had symptoms similar to Covid-19 in October 2019, and therefore must have given the virus to the Chinese.
These October 2019 cases of US military personnel, in Wuhan, have been clarified and confirmed as Malaria. (www.globaltimes.cn)
A Wuhan hospital clarified the clinical diagnoses of five foreign athletes at the 7th CISM Military World Games held in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province in October 2019, saying that they contracted malaria and were not infected by the novel coronavirus.
This is NOT the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The posts that subsequently went viral on social media, prompted theories that they were the original carriers of the novel coronavirus, were presumably wrong.
Fake news is still being spread around..
Notes:
28 January 2020. White House officials have told U.S. airlines the Trump administration is considering suspending China flights amid an escalating death toll from the new coronavirus, but it has not decided to take that step. (www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/white-house-discussing-china-travel-restrictions-amid-coronavirus-outbreak.html)
22 March 2020. Americans — just as capable as carrying and transmitting a contagious viral infection as foreigners — had free passage between China and the U.S. (www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/22/trump-never-actually-banned-flights-from-china)
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