China may have found coronavirus patient zero in Hubei province

By Spencer Neale

Published March 13, 2020 3:39pm ET

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China may have found coronavirus patient zero in Hubei province — People wear masks at a metro station in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. According to the Taiwan Centers of Disease Control (CDC) Tuesday, the eighth case diagnosed with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has been confirmed in Taiwan. | (Chiang Ying-ying/AP)

New government documents out of China claim to have found the earliest case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in a 55-year-old man from Hubei province.

The documents, which were seen by the South China Morning Post, show the man contracted the illness on Nov. 17, 2019, predating the World Health Organization’s first confirmed case on Dec. 8 and suggesting the disease could have spread undetected for weeks before serious measures were taken to mitigate the outbreak.

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China COVID-19