“Was Covid-19 here before we thought it was?”

In most recent scientific studies, researchers have determined that COVID-19 may have given us an early Christmas present last year! How you may ask? When the Redcross and the CDC decided to dig deeper in on when Covid-19 arrived in the US, they looked at blood donations from early December of 2019. From there, they found valuable info that has changed the original timeline.

What they did to determine this information was to conduct an antibody test on the donated blood from that time. The antibody test, also known as a serology test, looks for the presence of antibodies, which is a protein made in response to the infection. In this antibody test, they try to find SARS-CoV-2 (scientific name of the new strand of coronavirus), which is the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans. In animals, it is referred to as SARS-CoV-2. The disease SARS-CoV-2 causes in humans is, as we all know, COVID-19.

The scientists found the antibodies from the blood donations from December 14-16th in 2019 in California, Oregon, and Washington.  From December 30- January 17th, antibodies were found in states such as Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. But from this research with the blood samples from donations, the number of antibodies they found in each sample was meager. This makes sense and shows it wasn’t widespread at that time.

For some, it was expected this virus was in the United States earlier than we anticipated as many were getting sick but didn’t know why. Some dots may be connecting for people after hearing many cases of people feeling like they have the flu but testing negative for the flu and strep and left in medical confusion. This left the whole world baffled.

Overall, this is extraordinary news. But the battle against Covid is not quite over yet! 

Sources: 

• Serology Testing CDC
• Redcross “Study Suggests Possible New COVID-19 Timeline in the U.S.”
• Evaluation for SARS-CoV-2 CDC
• Science alert “US had Coronavirus in Early December”
• Usatoday “Could your December Cough…”