China dismisses Harvard study suggesting coronavirus may have spread in Wuhan in August

China has dismissed the research published by Harvard Medical School which suggested the coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August 2019. The researchers had analyzed hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan that indicated an early disease activity in the fall of 2019.

“I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume,” said Hua Chunying, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, during a regular press briefing.

The researchers used previously validated data streams like satellite imagery of hospital parking lots and Baidu search queries of disease-related terms to investigate the possibility of an early outbreak. The authors observed an upward trend in hospital traffic and search volume beginning in late Summer and early Fall 2019. 

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Direct relation not established

They argued that though queries of the respiratory symptom “cough” show seasonal fluctuation, “diarrhoea” is a more COVID-19 specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic. They identified a unique increase in searches for “diarrhoea” which was neither seen in previous flu seasons nor mirrored in the cough search data.

“While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our evidence supports other recent work showing that emergence happened before identification at the Huanan Seafood market,” the study said.

Around five major hospitals were tracked during the period of late summer to December 2019, all showing an influx of cars and vehicular movement peaking in September - October. Researchers found 108 usable frames to study the parking lots and the roads around the hospitals, which showed up to a 90 per cent increase in traffic between fall of 2018 and 2019, and highest car counts starting from September through December 2019, suggesting some form of community panic which was prompting people to rush to hospitals. 

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