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Coronavirus pandemic may not have started in China, experts say 6park.com

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By Sarah Knapton

July 6, 2020 — 7.00am 6park.com

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London: Coronavirus may have lain dormant across the world and emerged when environmental conditions were right for it to thrive - rather than starting in China, an Oxford University expert believes.
Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, and visiting professor at Britain's Newcastle University, says there is growing evidence the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia. 6park.com
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Coronavirus: Crowds pack UK pubs
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Huge crowds have gathered outside pubs in London, as bars re-opened after lockdown. 6park.com
Last week, Spanish virologists announced they had found traces of COVID-19 in samples of waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the disease was seen in China. Italian scientists have also found evidence of the virus in sewage samples in Milan and Turin, from mid-December, many weeks before the first case was detected, while experts have found traces in Brazil from November.
Dr Jefferson believes that many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favourable. It also means they can vanish as quickly as they arrive. 6park.com
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The Tonnies meat packaging plant in Germany where a COVID-19 cluster occurred.CREDIT:GETTY
"Where did SARS-1 go? It's just disappeared," he said. "So we have to think about these things. We need to start researching the ecology of the virus, understanding how it originates and mutates. We may be seeing a dormant virus that has been activated by environmental conditions. There was a case in the Falkland Islands in early February. Now, where did that come from?
"There was a cruise ship that went from South Georgia to Buenos Aires and the passengers were screened and then on day eight... they got the first case. Was it in prepared food that was defrosted and activated?
Exploring why so many outbreaks happen at food factories and meat-packing plants could uncover major new transmission routes.
"Strange things like this happened with Spanish Flu. In 1918, around 30 per cent of the population of Western Samoa died of Spanish Flu and they hadn't had any communication with the outside world. 6park.com
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"The explanation could only be that these agents don't come or go anywhere. They are always here and something ignites them, maybe human density or environmental conditions, and this is what we should look for." 6park.com
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Dr Jefferson believes that the virus may be transmitted through the sewerage system or shared toilets, not just through droplets expelled by talking, coughing and sneezing.
Jefferson and Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, have called for an in-depth investigation similar to that carried out by John Snow in 1854, which showed cholera was spreading in London from an infected well in Soho.
Exploring why so many outbreaks happen at food factories and meat-packing plants could uncover major new transmission routes, they believe. It may be shared toilets coupled with cool conditions that allow the virus to thrive.