NIH researchers find more evidence Covid was circulating in the US in December 2019 [View all]

[LiberalArkie]

(CNN)Researchers have found more evidence that coronavirus was circulating at low levels across the United States as early as December 2019 -- weeks before the first officially reported cases.

Frozen blood samples indicate people in five states -- Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and Massachusetts -- were infected with coronavirus days or weeks before any cases were officially reported in those states.

Volunteers taking part in the National Institutes of Health's All of Us study, an ongoing effort to gather health information on 1 million people, donated blood as part of the study. Tests of 24,000 samples taken in early 2020 showed antibodies to coronavirus in the blood of at least nine people, the All of Us researchers reported in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"These included individuals with specimens collected January 7 from Illinois, January 8 from Massachusetts, February 3 from Wisconsin, February 15 from Pennsylvania, and March 6 in Mississippi," they wrote.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/health/coronavirus-all-of-us-blood-survey/index.html