Could the Covid-19 have been present in Italy since November 2019? This is what is said by an Italian doctor from Bergamo (Lombardy), whose words were taken up by several media in the world after an interview with an American media.
In an interview with NPR, the public radio network in the United States, Dr Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Milan Pharmacological Research Institute, claims that a strange pneumonia was raging in November 2019 in northern Italy , according to feedback from general practitioners today. "They (Editor's note, general practitioners) remember having seen very strange, very serious cases of pneumonia, especially in elderly patients, in December and even in November," says the transalpine doctor.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in the northern region of Lombardy; before we know about this epidemic in China, ”says the man who is a hematologist in Bergamo in addition to his Milanese activity. According to NPR, he added that it was impossible to fight something "which we did not know existed".
A very popular theory in China
Since the start of the crisis on the other side of the Alps, this researcher has participated directly in the management of the crisis in the hospital where he practices. He even drew an article for the famous scientific journal The Lancet where he develops the lessons to be learned from this health crisis.
The problem is that this interview across the Atlantic aroused strong enthusiasm in China, the Beijing regime taking advantage of the idea that the epidemic might not have come from the Middle Kingdom.
Contacted by Le Parisien, Dr. Remuzzi answered us by email. Above all, he denies that the virus could come from anywhere other than the city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic. For this, he refers us to scientific articles published on the issue since January.
Then he admits that he “has no scientific evidence. These are rumors from a small number of people and the impressions of some doctors who, however, have not confirmed to me that they had noticed bilateral pneumonia before January ”.
"None of these cases have been documented as Covid-19"
To prove his good faith, however, he provided us with the following findings:
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- 1 confirmed case of bilateral interstitial pneumonia at the Alzano Lombardo hospital in Bergamo. "But we don't know if it was the Covid-19 because at the time it couldn't be tested," added the Italian practitioner.
- 2 cases of pneumonia in December in Scanzorosciate (province of Bergamo) with a high fever, cough and breathing difficulties which general practitioners considered to be unusual.
- Several cases of pneumonia, at the end of November and in December, again with fever, cough, fatigue and breathing difficulties in the regions of Gera D'Adda (south of Bergamo) and Cremona.
“They did not do x-rays. Some patients took two sets of antibiotics, some even three, and recovered within 15 days. This was not evidence of the presence of Covid-19, but it was 10 cases of pneumonia more than what the general practitioners usually observe, analyzes again Dr. Remuzzi. These were cases of bilateral pneumonia, which were not linked to the seasonal flu, since all these patients had been vaccinated, ”said the doctor. "I repeat: none of these cases has been documented as Covid-19 because there was as yet no evidence of the existence of Covid-19," he said.
According to this nephrologist and hematologist by training, the hypothesis that cases appeared in Italy in late November or early December is based on the idea that the Chinese authorities did not spot the virus immediately on their territory, because of its peculiarity. present asymptomatic carriers. "Which is now extremely well documented in Science magazine," he tells us, believing that the official date of its discovery in China surely does not correspond to its real appearance and therefore makes possible its arrival in November or December in Italy.
Fake news?
But what do we say about this side of the Alps? Each has its own specialty, we retort to the hematologist. "I thought that the specialists in infections and in particular epidemics were epidemiologists and virologists ...", criticizes Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, epidemiologist at the Mondor Institute of biomedical research. "You shouldn't take people for fools: any doctor in a country like Italy who has seen several cases of" strange pneumonia "would have declared it to the authorities. It's really taking people for fools, gets carried away Jean-Daniel Lelièvre. These are just fake news from people who don't care. ”
Dr. Remuzzi's comments also fueled the hypothesis of a different strain of the virus in Italy. Again, a false truth, according to Marie-Paule Kieny. "The virus is extremely close to a virus isolated from bats in China," analyzes the research director at Inserm and a former member of the WHO. The genetic sequences clearly show the evolution of the Italian virus from the strains isolated in Hubei at the beginning of 2020. This theory must be strongly rejected! "
As for the supposed date of appearance of the virus in Italy, a study, which has not yet been validated for publication, mentions an appearance in Italy before February. By going up the chain of contamination of the first patients affected in Lombardy, and especially by taking into account the sometimes long period between the contamination of an individual and the appearance of symptoms, a group of Italian doctors estimates that the circulation of the virus has started early January 2020. Long before the first identification in a hospital environment in Italy, which took place on February 20, as noted by specialist journalist Sylvestre Huet. The virus would therefore have appeared a little more than a month after the period mentioned by Dr. Remuzzi, and after the first cases identified in China.