According to recent phylogenic studies of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus, which basically means looking at the genomic diversification

and evolution of the disease we typically call COVID-19. It's currently believed that it descended

from a type of coronavirus that is prevalent in wild bats, either having transmitted directly

from a bat to a human and then changing

to be a better fit with its new host, or having first spread to an intermediary host, then changing

a bit within that new host, which then primed it to make the hop to humans. Whether one of those

decently well-backed Genesis stories turns out to be true, or if some

new bit of evidence emerges that points us in a new direction, it's believed that Patient

Zero, the initial known human case of the COVID-19 coronavirus, began to show symptoms

on December 1st of 2019 in Wuhan, China.

A few weeks later, the first admissions of COVID-19-bearing patients at hospitals were documented,

also in Wuhan. Recent data from the National Institute of Health in Italy indicates that

around this same time, sewage samples from wastewater of Health in Italy, indicates that around this same time,

sewage samples from wastewater treatment plants in Milan and Turin showed the presence of COVID-19.

So there's a good chance that the coronavirus was being spread internationally

well before most people realized it, and even before the alarm had been sounded in China,

before those first documented hospital cases.

By the end of December, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission had sent out a warning message

to other Chinese medical entities, providing an outline of the maybe outbreak they were seeing,

which at that point consisted of less than a dozen

patients showing similar symptoms and markers, indicating they were dealing with a SARS

or severe acute respiratory syndrome type virus, which led some to believe this was a recurrence

...