The July 26, 2022 article, ‘The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic’, by Michael Worobey, Joshua Levy and others states,
“The two lineage A cases for which we have location information involved the two earliest lineage A genomes known to date. Neither case reported any contact to the Huanan market (7). The first case was detected before any knowledge of a possible association of unexplained pneumonia in Wuhan with the Huanan market (5) and therefore could not have been a product of ascertainment bias in favor of cases residing near the market. The second had stayed in a hotel near the market (32) for the five days preceding symptom onset (25). Relative to the age-matched Wuhan population distribution, the first individual resided closer to the Huanan market (2.31km) than expected (p=0.034).”
Worobey stated “the first individual (lineage A) resided closer to the Huanan market than expected.” In a November 2020 article, Worobey stated regarding the home address of this
early lineage A Covid-19 case,
“one from a patient (age and gender not reported) who stayed in a hotel near Huanan Market in the days before illness onset in December (13) and the other from the 62-year-old husband in cluster 1 who visited Yangchahu Market, just a few blocks north of Huanan Market (1), and lived just to the south (see the figure).”—in the article, ‘Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan’, by Michael Worobey.
Worobey knew the ‘residences’ of some of the early Covid-19 cases, those who lived ‘just south’ of the Huanan Seafood Market. Worobey figure at the end of “Dissecting….’ shows he had knowledge of the ‘home addresses’ of many of the early cases. He may have gotten that information from the WHO, who stated in February 2021,
“Detailed reconstruction of current knowledge starting with the initial cluster of cases, starting at the earliest cases (prior to 31 December 2019), and including the study related to the Huanan market cluster ……..The information of cases is mainly collected through the direct reporting system of infectious disease information network and retrospective questionnaires done by the confirmed cases, including general information such as age, gender and home address, as well as the time of onset, market exposure history, exposure history with other patients, animal exposure history, and other onset and exposure related information”, —- ‘WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part Joint WHO-China Study 14 January-10 February 2021 Joint Report – ANNEXES
Setting aside the question as to whether virologists should be allowed to use peoples home addresses that they provided in private, for research purposes.
In his February 26, 2022 preprint, ‘The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence’, the Worobey study group admitted they copied epidemiological linkage figures from the WHO reports, ‘Figure S4. Fig. 23 page 44 from the WHO mission report. The radius of each circle marker each case location is about 125 m.’
Worobey’s Figure in his article “Dissecting…..’ is almost a copy of the WHO’s ‘Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of the 174 cases by home address’ and ‘Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of the 164 cases living in Wuhan by home address’.
The information that Worobey provided in ‘Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan’, in November 2021, must be integrated into this new July 26, 2022 paper, to understand lineage A epicenter relatedness.
“Given that the elderly couple at HPHICWM (Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine) was the WHO report’s cluster 1, it follows that the husband, illness onset 26 December (1), must be the source of the earliest lineage A sequence, Wuhan/IMEWH01/2019 (GenBank accession number MT291826) (see fig. S1), which he most likely got from his wife, who became ill 15 December…….Crucially, however, the now famous “earliest” COVID-19 case (1), a 41-year-old male accountant, who lived 30 km south of Huanan Market and had no connection to it—illness onset reported as 8 December—appears to have become ill with COVID-19 considerably later (12)….and date of hospitalization as 22 December (13).”
Wuhan/IMEWH01/2019, MT291826, the elderly husband, has a collection date of December 30, 2019 according to NCBI. Lineage A sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT291826
At that time in November 2021, Worobey thought that the WHO’s cluster 1 elderly couple was the earliest lineage A sequence. From the WHO’s own 2021 report regarding cluster 1 Covid-19 infected persons,
“Cluster 1: Including two confirmed cases, living together as husband and wife. Both of them denied case contact history, as well as history of exposure to Huanan Market. Spouse one, 62 years old, fell ill on 15 December 2019, spouse two, 62 years old, fell ill on 26 December 2019. Source of infection: Spouse one had a travel history to Thailand in November 2019, so imported infection cannot be ruled out. The married couple had bought shrimps from a Supermarket at Yangchahu, so cold chain food contact history cannot be ruled out either. The couple denied history of exposure to Huanan Market, however they had purchased and contacted chickens slaughtered in a market at Yangchahu, they might have been exposed to infection in other markets. The onset interval between the two was 11 days, because the couple lived together, it cannot rule out the possibility that spouse one was infected by spouse two.”—-‘ WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2:
China Part Joint WHO-China Study 14 January-10 February 2021 Joint Report – ANNEXES’, page 157
This elderly couple lived south of HSM, within 2.31 km to the HSM, the epicenter.
Regarding the second earliest lineage A person’s (temporary) residence, Worobey wrote in his July 26, 2022 article,
“The second had stayed in a hotel near the market (32) for the five days preceding symptom onset (25)….. While the exact location of the hotel near the market was not reported (32), there are at least 20 hotels within 500 m (table S1). Under the conservative assumption that the hotel could have been located as far as 2.31 km from the Huanan market”
Worobey referenced the article, ‘Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: …’, by Roujian Lu and others, when he made this claim. Those authors observed,
“one patient (WH04) did not visit the market but stayed in a hotel near the market between Dec 23 and Dec 27, 2019 (table). ” Table Patient Information in that article shows WH04 as having no exposure to Huanan Seafood Market and his hospitalization sample taken January 5, 2020. But an earlier sampling ‘may’ have occurred December 30, 2019, SARS-CoV-2/human/CHN/Wuhan_IME-WH04/2019, complete genome, MT291829.1.
Worobey in his November 2021 article, ‘Dissecting the early Covid-19 cases in Wuhan’, similarly identified,
“a 41-year-old male accountant, who lived 30 km south of Huanan Market and had no connection to it—illness onset reported as 8 December—appears to have become ill
with COVID-19 considerably later (12). When interviewed, he reported that his COVID-19 symptoms started with a fever on 16 December; the 8 December illness was a dental problem related to baby teeth retained into adulthood (12). This is corroborated
by hospital records and a scientific paper that reports his COVID-19 onset date as 16 December and date of hospitalization as 22 December (13).”
based on WHO reports (see footnote 25). It is this 41 year old accountant that lived 30 km south of HSM, that most likely stayed in a hotel near HSM December 23 through 27, aka, WH04 (lineage A), who actually became sick with a fever December 16, 2019, according to Worobey own quote above. Possibly became Covid-19 infected nowhere near the epicenter.
Professor Zhao Su, the chief physician of the Department of Respiratory Medicine of Wuhan Central Hospital reportedly gave Caixin this account of the 41 year old accountant lineage A second person.
“On December 27, a 41-year-old man named Chen went to the Nanjing Road Hospital of Wuhan Central Hospital for treatment. ‘He is an accountant and lives in Wuchang. He has never been to the South China Seafood Market in Hankou. He started to have a fever on December 16 without any obvious cause. The maximum body temperature was 39.5 ° C, accompanied by palpitations, chest tightness, difficulty breathing after exercise, and physical strength. Significant decline, first seeing the doctor at Jiangxia District First People’s Hospital on December 22, did not improve.’ ‘Zhao Su told Caixin reporter’,” —-in the article, ‘Tracking the Source of Novel Coronavirus Gene Sequencing: When Does the Alarm Goes Off’, https://www.jenniferzengblog.com/home/2020/2/26/tracking-the-source-of-novel-coronavirus-gene-sequencing-when-the-alarm-goes-off
This lineage A second person went almost ten days with the lineage A Covid-19 coronavirus, before hospitalizing himself. Probably infected outside of the epicenter area.
On the other hand, the first lineage B case was a 41 year old Huanan Seafood Market worker whose BALF sample was taken December 26, 2019.
“Here we study a single patient who was a worker at the market and who was admitted to the Central Hospital of Wuhan on 26 December 2019………The patient studied was a 41-year-old man with no history of hepatitis, tuberculosis or diabetes.……. During admission, BALF (bronchoalveolar lavage fluid ) was collected and stored at −80 centigrade until further processing….This virus strain was designated as WH-Human 1 coronavirus (WHCV) (and has also been referred to as ‘2019-nCoV’) and its whole genome sequence (29,903 nt) has been assigned GenBank accession number MN908947”. —- in the article, ‘A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China’, by Fan Wu, Su Zhao, Bin Yu, and others, Shanghai Public Health Center, Wuhan Central Hospital and others, received for publication January 7, 2020.
Definitely in the middle of the epicenter.This lineage B (first/second) case sampling occurred about six days before the first lineage A sampling of a human. On the other hand, the A20 gloves Huanan environment sample taken January 1, 2020, lineage A, in the middle of the epicenter, in stall 15 or 17 according to Gao. Possibly in the same stall with F13 wall sample, lineage B. WHO cluster 2 HSM stall 15 employees?
Lineage A Covid-19 could have been on those gloves for up to 30 days prior. And who knows what A lineage stuff was originally in or on those gloves to cause the lineage A sampling January 1, 2020.
