Is Wuhan's 'Patient Su' Covid's patient zero? Report reveals new timeline of infection

'Patient Su' fell ill in September 2019 and was treated at Rongjun Hospital in Wuhan. The patient did not undergo nucleic testing and later died.

Three weeks before China admitted SARS-CoV-2 virus cases, the country might have its first case, Daily Mail reported quoting new findings. These findings are based on an interview of Wuhan University biostatistics professor Yu Chuanhua, given to Chinese medical journal, Health Times. In the interview, the professor talked about one suspected fatality of a patient who fell ill in September 2019 and eventually died.

Who is Patient Su?

According to Daily Mail, there is a record of a case under the name of Patient Su who was treated at Rongjun Hospital in Wuhan. The patient did not undergo nucleic testing. The data has not been confirmed, the professor said. Going by the building and the street number as found in hospital records, it is believed that the woman lived somewhere n the Kaile Guiyan community on Zhuodaoquan Street, very close to where several bat-related research was taking place. "These include a laboratory run by China’s Centre for Disease Control with the second-highest global levels of biosecurity little more than one mile away, while downtown sites run by Wuhan Institute of Virology are less than three miles away," Daily Mail said.

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Patient Su's location was also close to a high-speed rail line, which might have played a crucial role in spreading the infection.

The screenshots of the details were by mistake published by the medical journal.

Yu, according to the report, called up the journalist within two days to retract this information and claimed that the dates had been entered incorrectly and all the other suspected cases before December 8 needed verification.

Covid timeline

On December 31, China informed the World Health Organization about a Vitus outbreak in Wuhan. Between December 8 and January 2, 41 people had fallen ill, according to China's official account.

A Us intelligence report has recently found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019. US President Joe Biden has recently ordered the intelligence agencies to step up their investigations into the emergence of the virus.