The coronavirus started spreading in Britain before officials managed to scoop up the first two confirmed patients in York in January, a study has claimed.
Researchers working in Brazil and Uruguay have studied the curves of COVID-19 outbreaks in countries around the world to try and work out their true start dates.
The first two people to be diagnosed with the disease in the UK were a University of York student and his mother, who was visiting from China at the time. Their positive test results were publicly announced on January 30.
And a study has suggested that the virus started spreading between members of the public on January 29, meaning the two patients had either spread it to other people before falling ill, or they caught it from somebody else who brought the virus into the country.
Officials didn’t admit there was community transmission in Britain until two months later.
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said on March 5 only that it was ‘highly likely’ the virus was spreading in this country.
The study suggests Britain caught on to its outbreak quickly, however – countries including the US and Italy had a gap of two weeks between the start and the first positive test.
In Brazil, meanwhile, the virus appears to have been spreading for weeks before the Rio Carnival, which was attended by millions of people in late February, but the first case was only officially recorded on February 26 – the week after.
The first two people to test positive for COVID-19 in the UK were a mother and son staying at the Staycity Hotel in York (pictured). The man was a student at the University of York and his mother was visiting from China
Scientists suggest the coronavirus had been spreading in Brazil for weeks before the Rio Carnival in late February, but the first case wasn’t detected until after the world-famous celebrations (Pictured: Millions of people flocked to the streets of the Brazilian capital for the annual festival)
Some countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, managed to declare their first positive tests before the virus started to spread, showing officials managed to isolate cases in travellers from abroad.
The researchers, from the Federal University of Espírito Santo and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, and the University of the Republic in Uruguay, studied countries death tolls to work out when their outbreaks may have begun.
They said that community transmission was likely to have begun at least 20 days before deaths started to rise exponentially.
Many countries, they wrote, seemed to have missed early signs of viral spread which highlighted difficulties they will face tracking it in the future.
For some of them, the virus had been spreading for weeks before anyone tested positive and more than a month before people started to die, the study suggested.
‘Community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 probably started in many western countries between middle January to early February 2020, thus long before control measures to restrict air travels and promote social distancing were implemented,’ the scientists, led by Professor Gonzalo Bello said.
| Country | Community transmission started |
First confirmed case | First confirmed death |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 06-Dec | 31-Dec | 09-Jan |
| New York | 06-Feb | 01-Mar | 14-Mar |
| Italy | 15-Jan | 30-Jan | 21-Feb |
| Spain | 28-Jan | 31-Jan | 13-Feb |
| France | 22-Jan | 24-Jan | 15-Feb |
| UK | 29-Jan | 30-Jan | 05-Mar |
| Belgium | 02-Feb | 02-Feb | 11-Mar |
| Germany | 30-Jan | 27-Jan | 09-Mar |
| Netherlands | 29-Jan | 27-Feb | 06-Mar |
| Brazil | 04-Feb | 26-Feb | 17-Mar |
‘That quite long period of cryptic community transmission (> 4 weeks) in all analyzed countries draws attention to the great challenge of tracking the early global spread of SARS-CoV-2.
‘[It] supports that control measures should be adopted at least as soon as first imported cases are detected in a new geographic region.’
The research found that there was a delay of just one day between the start of community transmission of COVID-19 in the UK.
Two people were confirmed to have the virus on January 30, but the timing of the start of people dying suggested they had either spread the virus to others or caught it from someone else before they were hospitalised.
England confirmed the first death from COVID-19 on March 5.
Belgium managed to pick up the first case of the coronavirus on the same day that public transmission is thought to have started, on February 2. Its first fatality was announced on March 11.
Spain and France managed a lag of just two days, the scientists said, while Germany picked up the first cases in travellers three days before community spread began.
New York, however, saw a lag of almost a month – from February 6 to March 1 – from the estimated beginning of uncontrolled infections to its first positive test.
The city has since battled one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the world and around 340,000 people have tested positive there, with almost 22,000 dead.
There was a lag of just over three weeks in Brazil, the scientists’ home nation, the study found.
Crucially, the Rio Carnival happened during that three weeks. Transmission is anticipated to have started on February 6, before the first case was diagnosed on February 26. The first person died on March 17, the study said.
The research was published online on MedRxiV without review from other scientists.