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New Study Suggests COVID-19 Outbreak Began in Wuhan Earlier Than Reported

VOA News

   A study by U.S. researchers suggests the novel coronavirus that was
   first detected in central China may have begun spreading well before
   the outbreak was first revealed to the world.

   According to scientists at Harvard Medical Center, Boston University of
   Public Health and Boston Children's Hospital, satellite images of
   hospital parking lots in the city of Wuhan showed "a steep increase" in
   traffic starting in August of last year and peaking in December, when
   Beijing first alerted the World Health Organization about the new
   disease that has since been dubbed COVID-19.

   The imagery reveals that one of the hospitals surveyed, Tianyou
   Hospital, had 285 vehicles in its parking lots in October 2019,
   compared to 171 cars the year before, an increase of 67 percent.

   The study also said the rise in hospital traffic during that time
   coincided with numerous online word searches for "cough" and "diarrhea"
   on the Chinese search engine Baidu.

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