It was submitted by Chinese scientists to the canonical database (Genbank, part of NCBI, part of NIH) but didn't get published because it lacked some metadata (annotations of genes)
I've been in Japan from mid-Oct until mid-Dec in 2019 and in late October I got sick like hell. People were talking about the flu but it was not just that I can tell. For me the symptoms were way worse than before when having the flu, and only later realized that every single symptom I had matched with Covid. At least the first two waves spared me at home. But one of my friends was not so successful. He was in Japan too until the end of the summer, and back home he had to go to the hospital with a nasty bilateral pneumonia. The doctors were confused back then, but finally he recovered. Months later it turned out that it's one of the most severe complications of Covid.
Have read some paper stating that the first infections have happened in May, but couldn't find it.
I felt like it couldn't be further from the flu. The dead giveaway was that it was completely bereft of stomach issues. While it absolutely awful, I could shockingly eat like 7 donuts. Hilariously, I mocked my niece that ended up giving it to me as faking it because she ate so much apple pie. Definitely learned my lesson.
Unlikely this was COVID, we know enough about how it spread to almost certainly rule out it was outside China in significant enough numbers for you to have had it in Japan before 2020.
The May paper is most likely wrong. You heard about it because it is an extraordinary claim that gets attention, not because the evidence is good.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] threadHave read some paper stating that the first infections have happened in May, but couldn't find it.
The May paper is most likely wrong. You heard about it because it is an extraordinary claim that gets attention, not because the evidence is good.