CONTEXT: Report of retrospective analysis of blood samples by the NIH in the US sheds light on the origins of the pandemic in the US. By analysing new antibody tests on blood samples collected between Jan 2 and March 18 2020, the study was able to show evidence of COVID-19 outside the major urban areas of Seattle and New York where the virus was thought to have entered the country and that the virus was present int he US as far back as December of 2019.
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1. ““Antibody testing of blood samples helps us better understand the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. in the early days of the U.S. epidemic, when testing was restricted and public health officials could not see that the virus had already spread outside of recognized initial points of entry,” said Keri N. Althoff, Ph.D., lead author and associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore.”
2. “Article. Althoff KN, et al, “Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in All of Us Research Program Participants,” January 2-March 18, 2020, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 15, 2021 – A new antibody testing study examining samples originally collected through the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program found evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in five states earlier than had initially been reported.”
3. “In the All of Us study, researchers analyzed more than 24,000 stored blood samples contributed by program participants across all 50 states between Jan. 2 and March 18, 2020.”
4. “In the All of Us study, researchers looked in participant samples for a type of antibodies called IgG.”
5. “In this study, the first positive samples came from participants in Illinois and Massachusetts on Jan. 7 and 8, 2020, respectively, suggesting that the virus was present in those states in late December.”