新冠“零号病人”到底在哪？|中非日报

新冠“零号病人”到底在哪？

2024-09-16 01:22:48

新冠肺炎疫情发展到今天，媒体的视线大多聚焦在中国武汉的第一例确诊病例之后。注意，我说的第一例“确诊”病例，而不是真正的第一例感染。

Following the global outbreak of COVID-19, most of the media's attention has been focused on the development after the first confirmed case of the disease in China. Please note that I refer to the first "confirmed" case, not the first case.

目前，在世界各地陆续发现的首例患者中，有不少发生在武汉首例确诊之前。所以，问题来了，第一例在哪呢？究竟是什么时候开始传播的？
Recent reports indicate that COVID-19 was found in many countries before it was first reported in China. So, here is the question, where is the first case? When did it begin to spread?

Let's take a look at some interesting cases outside China.
让我们回溯一下那些发生在中国以外的一些早期病例。

In the U.S., the County of Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner identified three deaths with COVID-19 on February 6. That's 23 days before the country announced its first fatality from the virus in Kirkland, Washington, on February 29.
美国北加州圣克拉拉公共卫生部公布三例死于新冠肺炎的病例，其中最早死亡时间为2020年2月6号，这比此前美国宣布的首例新冠肺炎死亡病例早了23天，此前认定的第一个死亡病例是在华盛顿州柯克兰，死于2月29日。

The county's chief medical officer, Dr. Sara Cody, said two of the individuals had no travel history that would have exposed them to the virus. Cody expressed belief that the novel coronavirus was circulating in the San Francisco Bay Area as early as January. The two deaths may have been written off as flu because there were significant numbers of influenza cases at the time.

圣克拉拉卫生局长莎拉•科迪表示其中两名患者都没有出国到过疫情热点地区。科迪认为，新冠病毒早在1月份就已经在旧金山湾区传播了。由于当时正值流感季，新冠肺炎患者很有可能会被误认为死于流感。

Nearly a month before the first officially recorded cases in Europe, a 42-year-old fishmonger showed up at a hospital in suburban Paris coughing, with a fever and having a hard time breathing. He was later tested positive for the coronavirus. It was December 27, 2019.
在欧洲首次出现确诊病例的近一个月前，一名42岁的鱼贩出现在巴黎郊区的一家医院，症状是咳嗽、发烧、呼吸困难。后来他的新冠病毒检测呈阳性。这起案例出现于2019年12月27日。

But the first suspected case of a COVID-19 infection in France could date even further back in time. Doctor Michel Schmitt, head of the medical imaging department at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in east France's Colmar, reviewed 2,456 chest scans performed between November 1, 2019, and April 30, 2020. According to the retrospective study, the first COVID-19 infections were identified on November 16 last year at the hospital.
但是在法国，第一起疑似病例可能要追溯到更久以前。位于法国东部城市科尔马的阿尔贝•施韦泽医院发表公告称，该院医学影像部负责人施密特重新研究了去年11月1日到今年4月30日拍摄的所有胸片底片，总计2456张。研究发现，最早出现带有典型新冠肺炎症状的病例可追溯到去年11月16日。

Also in November, the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey, Michael Melham fell sick. He recently shared his experience publicly, saying that the symptoms he exhibited at the time were that of COVID-19. That's over two months before the first confirmed case was reported in the U.S... Melham has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, further reinforcing his belief.
同样在11月，美国新泽西州贝尔维尔市市长迈克尔•梅勒姆病倒了。他最近公开分享了他的患病经历，表示他当时的症状与新冠肺炎症状一致。之后梅勒姆的新冠病毒抗体检测呈阳性，这进一步证实了他的猜想。而此时是在美国报告首例确诊病例之前两个多月。

Researchers at the University College London Genetics Institute have published a study titled "Emergence of genomic diversity and recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2" and said that the pandemic started between October 6, 2019 and December 11, 2019, which corresponds to the time the virus jumped from an animal host to humans.
伦敦大学学院遗传学研究所的研究人员发表了一项题为“SARS-CoV-2的基因组多样性和复发性突变的出现”的论文，该研究发现，新冠病毒在2019年10月6日至2019年12月11日期间，或已在全球迅速传播，并且仍在反复发生突变以不断适应其人类宿主。

Hoover senior fellow at Stanford University Victor Davis Hanson also pointed to reports of last fall's flu season that he believes may have been the coronavirus, then unbeknownst to doctors.
斯坦福大学胡佛研究院高级研究员维克托•戴维斯•汉森也指出，去年流感季节早期的报道案例，他认为可能是新冠病毒引起的，只不过医生当时并不知道罢了。

Let's look at this map again. Before China's first confirmed COVID-19 case, similar infections had already been detected in other countries -- C even before the disease came to be known by its current name. So, when did the novel coronavirus originate? Where did the first case appear? Science has the key to a satisfactory answer. And maybe, just maybe, we'll never get to the bottom of things. Even the first cases of some worldwide infectious diseases, such as AIDS and Influenza A virus have yet to find their sources. People around the world uniting to fight against the pandemic could be the only right thing to do right now in the face of the virus.
我们再来回顾一下这张地图，在中国确诊首例新冠肺炎病例之前，其它国家已经有了类似的确诊病例。新冠病毒到底是起源于何时？第一例案例到底在哪里出现？这个问题需要科学来验证，但也许我们永远都找不到答案。甚至有些全球范围内流行的传染病，比如艾滋病和甲型H1N1流感，至今都没有找到确切的来源。全世界人民团结起来共同抗疫，可能是我们面对这场疫情能做的唯一正确选择。