First Covid Deaths Were Earlier Than Thought

[wnylib]

64. But TFG is not the one who first

identified covid with Wuhan. That came from the health community. He merely used the health community's belief that Wuhan (or someplace near there) was covid ground zero to promote his hate speech.

It is not firmly established that the virus was in Italy before it was in China. Some IgM antibodies suggest the possibility, but further testing of virus protein spikes, plus indications of people with clinical symptoms are necessary to confirm that covid was in Italy in September, 2019.

Even if that gets confirmed, it does not establish that the virus originated in Italy. There is frequent travel and business between China and Italy. The virus could have been in China that far back and picked up by Italians in China or vice versa.

It's possible that the original virus was less contagious and less lethal, allowing it to spread without detection until it mutated to a form that spread faster and caused more serious symptoms. So, given the amount of world travel before the pandemic, it could have been circulating in a milder form in many countries before it was recognized.