Doctors in France find coronavirus case from December
They say the findings suggest the virus was present a month before the first official case was recorded
Doctors at a French hospital retested old samples from pneumonia patients and discovered that they treated a man who had coronavirus as early as 27 December, nearly a month before the nation’s government confirmed its first cases.
The team have sat the case suggests the virus was circulating in France a month before the first official case was recorded.
Dr Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in Paris, told BFM TV the researchers had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.
“Of the 24, we had one who was positive for COVID-19 on 27 December,” he told the news channel on Sunday.
