Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study. Using techniques similar to those
Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study.
“Something was happening in October,” said Brownstein, the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and director of the medical center’s Computational Epidemiology Lab. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
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. “This is all about a growing body of information pointing to something taking place in Wuhan at the time,” Brownstein said. “Many studies are still needed to fully uncover what took place and for people to really learn about how these disease outbreaks unfold and emerge in populations. So this is just another point of evidence.”
“I think some of the methods are questionable and their interpretation is slightly over-interpreted,” Perlin said. “The problem is we only have a subset of data here. I always worry when people start drawing inferences from data subsets, cherry-picking data [like the internet searches]. It’s suggestive.
To ensure they were not reaching faulty conclusions, researchers said they took into account everything that could explain away traffic surges -- from large public gatherings to the possibility of new construction at the hospitals. Still, they said they found statistically significant increases in the numbers of cars present.
In conducting the project, RS Metrics, an intelligence-analysis firm that analyzes satellite imagery for corporate clients, employed techniques designed to identify and monitor changes in the patterns of life and business. Former acting Homeland Security Undersecretary John Cohen, who oversaw DHS intelligence operations during the Obama administration, said the new research suggests that COVID-19, which has already killed more than 110,000 Americans, was likely brought to the U.S. by travelers from Wuhan long before it was detected.
After that story was broadcast, the NCMI’s director issued a statement, denying that a formal “product/assessment” was generated in November. The statement did not address preliminary intelligence reports. When contacted Friday with the results of the new Harvard study, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said he had “nothing to add.
“The novel coronavirus is a previously unknown virus,” the report documents. “Determining its origin is a scientific issue that requires research by scientists and doctors. The conclusion must be based on facts and evidence.”
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