The coronavirus may have been in Italy as early as December.
The BBC reported that Italy’s National Institute of Health tested wastewater samples taken from northern cities between October and February. Samples from Milan and Turin showed genetic traces of the virus on Dec. 18.
The first confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Italy occurred on Jan. 31 when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive. The town of Codogno had the first confirmed non-imported cases of the virus when a cluster of 16 people tested positive on Feb. 16.
Over 40,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Italy.
Italy is not the first country in Europe to discover that the virus was present as far back as December. In May, France discovered a patient who had been admitted to a Paris hospital on Dec. 27 with flu-like symptoms was infected with the virus. Doctors discovered that he was infected with the virus when they retroactively tested respiratory samples from patients with flu-like symptoms who had not tested positive for the flu.
