BREAKING: Satellite imagery showing spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggests coronavirus may have been spreading through central China long before it was first reported to the world, a new study says.
Medical staff in protective suits treat a patient with pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China Jan. 28, 2020.
Though Brownstein acknowledged the evidence is circumstantial, he said the study makes for an important new data point in the mystery of COVID-19's origins. Brownstein and his team, which included researchers from Boston University and Boston Children’s Hospital, have spent more than a month trying to pin down the signs for when the population of Hubei province in China first started to be stricken.The logic of Brownstein’s research project was straightforward: respiratory diseases lead to very specific types of behavior in communities where they’re spreading.
Disease ecologist Peter Daszak, president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance in Manhattan, said the Harvard study “is absolutely fascinating." “It has to be right at noon,” Brownstein said, “because you basically want direct sunlight. You don’t want shadows to prevent our ability to count the cars.” As an initial"validation" of their methodology of extrapolating information about movement through the review of satellite images, researchers said they compared parking lot activity at the Huanan Seafood Market in mid-September, when the market was busy, and after the market was shut down by authorities after reports emerged that the wet market may have been ground zero for the novel coronavirus outbreak. They said they found a marked change.
“At all the larger hospitals in Wuhan, we measured the highest traffic we’ve seen in over two years during the September through December 2019 time frame,” Diamond said. “Our company is used to measuring tiny changes, like 2% to 3% growth in a Cabella’s or Wal-Mart parking lot. That was not the case here. Here, there is a very clear trend.”
“The Chinese government's cover up of initial reporting on the virus is just one more example of the challenges presented by the Chinese Communist Party's hostility toward transparency,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “The Chinese government has a responsibility to share information on the virus and support countries as the world responds to COVID-19.”reported
The council also defended the Chinese government’s response, writing, “China has also acted with a keen sense of responsibility to humanity, its people, posterity, and the international community.”Brownstein said he and his researchers found the hospital-traffic data to be even more compelling after digging into internet search patterns.
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