O Team The BSH that investigated Wuhan: The virus was spreading widely in December

The chief investigator for WHO's mission, Peter Ben Embarek, told CNN in an exclusive interview that the mission had found some signs of the most widespread spread in 2019, including the fact that there were over a dozen infected people in Wuhan in December. The team also had the opportunity to discuss with the first patient the officials said was infected, an office worker in his 40s, without travel stories and reported as a case on December 8th.

Showing more detailed data on the long - awaited journey of O In China, other scientists who say the virus may have spread to China long before its official reporting.

Embreek, who has just returned to Switzerland from Wuhan, told CNN: “Virus was widely circulated in Wuhan in December, which is a new discovery.”

O Specialist The BSH added that the team had been introduced by Chinese scientists with 174 cases of choreography in and around Wuhan in December 2019. Of these 100 were confirmed by laboratory tests, he said, and 74 others through clinical diagnosis of the patient.

Embarek said it meant that the disease could have affected about 1,000 people in Wuhan at the time.

We know that from the infected population, about 15% end up in serious cases, and the overwhelming majority are easy cases. ”

Embarak said the mission consisting of 17 O scientists The U.S. and 17 Chinese experts had expanded the type of genetic material of the virus that was examined by the early cases of the coronary in December 1st. As a result, they were able to collect for the first time 13 different genetic sequences of the SARS-COV-2 virus from December 2019. The sequences, if examined with broader data from patients in China during 2019, can provide valuable information on geography and the time of the pre - December explosion.

Embarek said: “Some of them are related to markets, but some of them are not”.