Notable spikes in internet search traffic and satellite data point to the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic had started in Wuhan, China, and began spreading some months before officials warned the World Health Organization, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School.The research team employed similar data collection strategies seen in intelligence agencies to analyze commercial satellite imagery and data as far back as October 2019 and “observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019,” Dr. John Brownstein told ABC News. Brownstein led the research group, and is the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital as well as the medical center’s director of the Computational Epidemiology Lab.Brownstein also said there were spikes in search traffic that coincided with “certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus.”The data could lend ammunition to President Donald Trump and his administration’s claims that China was slow to act on the virus. Officials in the Trump administration have claimed that China pressured the WHO to mislead the world about the oncoming threat.Related: Trump cuts ties with WHO, goes after China“Something was happening in October,” Brownstein said to ABC News. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
Notable spikes in internet search traffic and satellite data point to the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic had started in Wuhan, China, and began spreading some months before officials warned the World Health Organization, according to researchers at Harvard Medical School.
The research team employed similar data collection strategies seen in intelligence agencies to analyze commercial satellite imagery and data as far back as October 2019 and “observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019,” Dr. John Brownstein told ABC News. Brownstein led the research group, and is the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital as well as the medical center’s director of the Computational Epidemiology Lab.
Brownstein also said there were spikes in search traffic that coincided with “certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus.”
The data could lend ammunition to President Donald Trump and his administration’s claims that China was slow to act on the virus. Officials in the Trump administration have claimed that China pressured the WHO to mislead the world about the oncoming threat.
Related: Trump cuts ties with WHO, goes after China
“Something was happening in October,” Brownstein said to ABC News. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
