Author: Tursunova Balkadisha
Translator: Orazayeva Nargiz
Copy editors: Kigbayeva Kamila, Issabayeva Madina
A new study was conducted, in which it can conclude that it was during this period, from the end of summer until the beginning of autumn 2019, that the frequency of visits to patients increased significantly compared to a year earlier, according to data from an Internet request in Baidu search engine keywords related to the symptoms of infectious diseases.
Researchers note that they cannot directly relate the amount of traffic to the virus; even if there was an increase in traffic to hospitals, this does not mean that a new virus became the cause. There was no other evidence that the virus circulated in China at the end of the summer of 2019.
The first cases in Wuhan were discovered in mid-December, and Chinese officials reported cases of pneumonia to the World Health Organization on December 31, 2019. Further, Chinese scientists identified a new strain of the pathogen on January 7, 2020.
However, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Hua Chunin, commented on this conclusion by the fact that it is absurd to make inferences about the patterns of movement of cars because there is no absolute assertion here. Quote: “The most urgent task for the international community at the moment is to do everything possible to curb the spread of the pandemic and save more lives.”
Researchers, using satellite images from October 2018, have counted 171 cars in the parking lots of one of the largest hospitals in Wuhan. A year later, they showed that 285 cars in the same lots increased by 67% and increased by 90% at the same time in other Wuhan hospitals.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/
