French doctors believe that coronavirus was already circulating in the country at the end of December, after subsequently having diagnosed a patient who entered a hospital in the Paris region on 27 December. Intensive care manager at The Avicenne hospitals of Bobigny and Jean Verdier de Bondy, Yves Cohen, explained in statements issued on Monday by “France Info” that the case has been discovered with retrospective work of the PCR tests that were done to 24 patients admitted in December and January with pneumonia.
A man who entered the Jean Verdier had PCR samples taken that have now been re-analyzed and tested positive for COVID-19. The man, who had not made trips to assume that he contracted the infection abroad, was sick for a fortnight and infected his two children, but not his wife. This makes it suspect that the woman, being asymptomatic, may have been at the source of the contagion in the family. Particularly considering that he works in the fishmonger’s shop of a supermarket in which there is a clientele of Chinese origin. The conclusions of the practitioners should be published in an article of a specialized journal next week. The Regional Health Agency of Ile de France will analyse these hypotheses, which seem to confirm the thesis that the coronavirus was in France before the first cases that were officially recorded until now, and dating back to 24 January. It was a Frenchman of Chinese origin and two Chinese tourists who had passed through the city of Wuhan, where the start of the pandemic is located.
