It’s been a little over three months since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic. This fatal disease that mimics a severe pneumonia was traced all the way back to Wuhan, China, when medical experts in the region warned the world about a novel strain of coronavirus. As the virus managed to go past the Chinese borders, the spread of COVID-19 has been exponential. As of writing, there are now 9.7 million cases of COVID-19 all over the world, with the United States of America remaining the first ranked country when it comes to the highest reported cases of the disease. Prior to the USA, Europe was recognized as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact there has been really bad with tens of thousands of fatalities.
Fortunately, latest reports suggest that the situation in major European cities has shown signs of improvement. There is now a marked decrease in fatalities per day, and it appears that the quarantine measures have worked with lower fresh cases of COVID-19 reported daily. At least, it is finally the time to know how things came to be in Europe.
SARS-CoV-2 Could Have Already Reached Europe As Early As July 2019
Many people still have no idea how important wastewater management is in times of a health emergency like this. Specifically, analyzing wastewater samples in regions under study could show how the disease has spread from one place to another. This is kind of expected, since wastewater contains a variety of viruses and other microbes that come from every household in the locality. For example, you can know if there is a chance that a usps near me has been infiltrated by the virus.
In Italy, investigations done on wastewater in different cities stricken with COVID-19 all point to one thing: the existence of the virus in the wastewater samples may have lasted for more than six months, which means that the country may have already be dealing with the novel coronavirus as early as December 2019. At this point, it is believed that Italy only started to face COVID-19 in February this year.
Like the dire situation in the US, Italy suffered a lot from COVID-19, which is why the doctors in the country would like to know what happened. If SARS-CoV-2 (formal name to the novel coronavirus 2019) has been going around Italy since late 2019, then this explains why there is a very high number of cases reported in the country. Perhaps the most shocking findings from these wastewater analyses is the one from France, wherein it was suggested that SARS-CoV-2 is already present in the country as early as July 2019!