Department of Health Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
Coordinated Research Center "EpiSoMI", Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy.
BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Mar;7(3). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-008386.
Two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, key questions about the emergence of its aetiological agent (SARS-CoV-2) remain a matter of considerable debate. Identifying when SARS-CoV-2 began spreading among people is one of those questions. Although the current canonically accepted timeline hypothesises viral emergence in Wuhan, China, in November or December 2019, a growing body of diverse studies provides evidence that the virus may have been spreading worldwide weeks, or even months, prior to that time. However, the hypothesis of earlier SARS-CoV-2 circulation is often dismissed with prejudicial scepticism and experimental studies pointing to early origins are frequently and speculatively attributed to false-positive tests. In this paper, we critically review current evidence that SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating prior to December of 2019, and emphasise how, despite some scientific limitations, this hypothesis should no longer be ignored and considered sufficient to warrant further larger-scale studies to determine its veracity.
新冠疫情大流行开始两年后，关于其病原体（SARS-CoV-2）出现的一些关键问题仍然存在很大争议。其中一个问题是确定 SARS-CoV-2 何时开始在人群中传播。尽管目前公认的时间线假设该病毒于 2019 年 11 月或 12 月在中国武汉出现，但越来越多的不同研究提供的证据表明，该病毒在此之前可能已经在全球范围内传播了数周甚至数月。然而，病毒更早传播的假设经常被带有偏见的怀疑态度所否定，而且指向早期起源的实验研究经常被推测为假阳性测试。在本文中，我们批判性地回顾了目前关于 SARS-CoV-2 在 2019 年 12 月之前已经传播的证据，并强调了尽管存在一些科学限制，但这一假设不应再被忽视，并且应该被认为足以证明有必要进行进一步的更大规模研究以确定其真实性。
