Doctors in the French Haut-Rhin region, hit hard by Covid-19, say they’ve detected several cases dating back to 16 November 2019 – long before the disease is believed to have surfaced in France, and before it was even announced in China.
The hospital's chief of medical imaging, Professor Michel Schmitt, said the process allowed radiologists to pinpoint two cases of “typical anomalies caused by Covid-19” dated 16 November, 2019 and then 12 others in December and January – up until the virus reached its epidemic stage.
Doctors from across France have been trying to track the country's earliest case which, until now, is understood to have been found in Bondy, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis north of Paris, on 27 December – after PCR flu samples were re-tested.
Earlier this month, Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Jean Verdier and Avicenne hospitals – in Bondy and nearby Bobigny –told French TV channel BFM that a man had tested positive for Covid-19 nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.