A preliminary study conducted by researchers at the universities of "Boston" and "Harvard" showed that a large increase in the percentage of hospital visits and searches on the Internet related to symptoms of "Covid-19" from the Chinese city of Wuhan, may indicate that the new corona virus "SARS Cove 2" may Spread since August 2019.

The epidemic, which was linked to a virus transmitted from animals to humans, was first detected at the "Huanan" seafood market in Wuhan last December. Later, experts spoke of a genetic predecessor to the virus in mid-November 2019.

A report in the "South China Morning Post," quoting government data, indicated that the first patient or "patient zero" could return to November 17th.

Searches

This new research, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, comes under the relatively new field of "digital epidemiology".

A team led by Eileen Nesuez at Boston University analyzed 111 satellite images of Wuhan between January 2018 and April 2020. It was also discovered that many searches for symptoms similar to "Covid-19" were performed on the Chinese search engine "Baidu".

Image showing the same area in Wuhan on October 17, 2019 (higher) and February 25, 2020 (French)

The authors of the study wrote that it "detected a significant increase in the number of parked cars in the garage of Wuhan Hospital, starting in August 2019", and peaked last December.

Because inquiries about the word "cough" rise in the annual flu seasons, search has also been made for "causes of diarrhea" which is one of the most specific symptoms of "Covid-19".

Diarrhea

"In August, we identified a significant increase in searches for diarrhea that did not appear in previous flu seasons, or were reflected in research data on coughs," the team said.

Because respiratory symptoms are the most common feature of SARS Cove 2 وى infection, the study suggested that diarrhea “may play an important role in the local transmission of the virus.”

The authors said they were unable to conclusively confirm that the data they documented was related to the virus, but that their research supported the conclusions of other research.