Did China lie about the real start of the Covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan? This question has been asked many times for almost two years without being able to really give a definitive answer. New Australian study gives new answer, according to British newspaper The Independent : Wuhan city laboratories almost doubled their purchases of reagents for PCR tests in 2019 compared to 2018. However, the very first cases of the new coronavirus were officially detected in November 2019.
The Independent cites the report from Internet 2.0, an Australian cybersecurity company that compiled China’s spending on PCR reagents: 36.7 million yuan in 2018 but an explosion to 67.7 million yuan in 2019. Internet 2.0 estimates this “notable, significant and abnormal” increase, in particular from institutions located in Wuhan: the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic.
A coincidence ?
The results of this study make say The Independent that the epidemic may have started in the summer of 2019. And not just quietly since the Chinese government has therefore quickly taken steps to carry out tests. This conclusion has been contested by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The hypothesis of coincidence is nevertheless not totally to be excluded. The British newspaper questions Amesh Adalja, principal researcher at the Johns-Hopkins center, a reference in the follow-up of the pandemic, which does not find so surprising this increase in the purchases of reagents for PCR tests, “since it has become a method of choice for the detection of pathogens ”of all kinds, even before the Covid-19 pandemic.