2024-11-26 05:00:00
Connor Reed, here interviewed by the British television channel Sky News, from his apartment in Wuhan (China), March 6, 2020. YOUTUBE (SCREENSHOT)
Who is Covid-19 patient zero? Five years later, the mystery remains. But in a testimony that went unnoticed at the time, a young Welshman claims to have had the first symptoms of the disease on November 25, 2019, in Wuhan (China). That is, two weeks before the first commonly accepted case – a shrimp seller at the Huanan seafood market – and two months before the pandemic swept across the world.
The case of Connor Reed – that’s his name – has never been confirmed by doctors. Should we take it seriously? His very detailed story has since sparked a frenzy on scientific forums and social networks.
Far from being anecdotal, it could completely change the way we tell the story of the origin of the virus. It all depends on how much credit one gives to this Welsh expatriate’s testimony: important to Drastic (for “radical decentralized autonomous research team”), an informal group of self-taught pro-lab leak investigators; zero for scientists who defend the thesis of a zoonotic jump (a disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans) mid-November au marché.
The British face of confinement in Wuhan
Connor Reed’s name first appears on February 3, 2020 in the tabloid The Sun. It is presented like a “25-year-old teacher, who was diagnosed with coronavirus by doctors in Wuhan two months ago”. The article relates that this North Wales native caught the virus in the autumn, thought he was dying, and drank grog until the illness passed.
In France, he becomes immediately the man who “claims to have cured himself with whiskey and honey”while across the Channel, it is presented as “the first Briton to contract Covid-19”. The young expatriate with laughing eyes, available, accessible and smiling, becomes one of the good clients of the English-speaking media, from the most gossipy to the most serious.
Connor Reed, interviewed by British television channel Sky News, from his apartment in Wuhan, China, March 6, 2020. YOUTUBE (SCREENSHOTS)
On March 4, the Maila British conservative tabloid, publishes his illness recorda long story of two months of suffering and convalescence. He details having come down with a cold on November 25, 2019, going to the hospital for a chest X-ray on December 6, having spent three terrible weeks, and receiving a positive diagnosis over the phone on January 10, 2020. If the we trust this retrospective document, it would be the oldest known case of a patient suffering from Covid-19 to have testified.
“Contradictory elements”
Is it correct? Connor Reed is no longer here to answer for it. Back in Wales, he died in October 2020 of an overdose during a night out with his roommate. But the Briton left behind numerous interviews and traces on social networks.
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Since 2021, it is an object of investigationnotably for the Drastic group. Because the Welshman’s story, if proven, would prove that the Sars-CoV-2 virus was perhaps already circulating before the first cases at the seafood market. For others, it is a citizen with confused memories, even of a mythomaniac.
Certain elements support his good faith. From one interview to another, he maintains a consistent story: a harmless cold that degenerates into cough, fever, then pneumonia in two weeks. He also rightly corrects some inaccurate media reports, noting that he has never seen bats or koalas in the “fish market”as he calls it, where he thinks he caught the virus (unless he caught it from his kitten, he’s not sure).
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Other details are more of a concern. To Reuters, he claims to have had Covid-19 “in December”not in November. The Sun speaks of a two-week hospitalization, he of one or two days. He also mentions rumors “proven” curfew at the end of December, while confinement will only be discussed from January 20.
“It’s a difficult case, on which we have contradictory elements, admits Gilles Demaneuf, French engineer and member of the Drastic collective, who traced his school and some of his friends. Sometimes he extrapolated, there were approximations, distortions in his interviews. But all things considered, it’s more believable than I initially thought. » This is even very useful testimony for Drastic, who advocates for the thesis of a virus born in the laboratory, or in any case outside the market.
Evidence of an epidemic before the market?
The Welshman is thus cited by the group in a long file dating from 2023 on the “limits of official cases in Wuhan in 2019”. In the background, the idea that the epidemic started “from September”that the market would have been only one “superspreader event”opening the way to hypotheses other than zoonosis. “We concluded that it is most likely that he was contaminated at school, although we cannot be 100% sure”explains to Monde The Engineer2, Canadian Internet user, also a member of Drastic, who is preparing a publication on the subject.
But then, where would the virus come from? On the basis of evidence which he acknowledges to be “very weak”The Engineer2 speculates that Connor Reed may have been infected with Sars-CoV-2 during a summer campus he attended in August 2019, in Thailand and Indonesia. Or at the Wuhan military games, where athletes reported illness and several of his colleagues worked as interpreters. Or by a parent of a student who works in a P3 animal laboratory at Wuhan University Hospital. But not at the Huanan market, too far from his home, he judges.
These hypotheses each imply a different virus emergence scenario, but all pose problems of consistency. “If Connor had had Covid, then there probably would have been hundreds of other cases of Covid at the same time”challenges Peter Miller, a physics student who won a prize as part of a debate on the origin of Covid. And remember that with the rate of replication of the virus, if it had appeared at the beginning of November, there would have been 256 times more cases at the end of the year. But the retrospective serosurveillance studies showed that its circulation was almost zero at that time.
Strong epistemological reservations
So how can we explain Connor Reed’s story? Perhaps by a diagnostic error. Wuhan’s air is tainted by pollution (235 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particles at the end of 2019, a level considered very unhealthy), and causes numerous pneumonias. “We need to zoom out from what looks like an attractive anecdote, invites microbiologist Michael Worobey, author ofa flagship study on the first cases on the market. The burden of respiratory diseases [à Wuhan] is colossal. » This city of more than 12 million inhabitants deplores each year more than three respiratory infections on average per person and 750,000 serious pneumonias.
So many cases that can pass for Covid-19 without being one. “There was no written confirmation [de diagnostic] at the time, so as not to leave a trace, which fits pretty well with what Connor describes. But without a written record, there is no proof”admits Gilles Demaneuf.
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The Welsh expatriate wrote his own notebooks more than three months after the alleged events, with the risk of a failing memory. “There is a good chance that his memories have been reshaped by media discussions on the subject”believes philosopher of science Kenny Easwaran. In France, the Minister of Health at the time, Agnès Buzyn, claimed to have discovered the existence of the disease on December 20, 2019 on a blog in English, while the oldest online references date from the 30th, ten days later.
Uncertainty therefore remains, and the Welshman’s testimony, published in a newspaper fond of sensationalism, calls for caution. “Anyone who claims otherwise either has muddled ideas about what constitutes strong scientific evidence or not, or is purposely, cynically hyping it up.”dismisses Michael Worobey, who like many defenders of the zoonosis thesis, disapproves of Drastic’s conclusions and methods.
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How do experts view the reliability of Connor Reed’s account in the context of Covid-19’s potential early spread?
The text discusses the case of Connor Reed, a British man who claimed to be one of the earliest known cases of Covid-19. The narrative highlights his timeline of illness beginning in late November 2019, culminating in a positive diagnosis in January 2020. His claims, if verified, could suggest that the Sars-CoV-2 virus was circulating before the outbreak was officially recognized in Wuhan, particularly centered around the Huanan Seafood Market.
Reed’s account has been met with skepticism and has sparked investigations by groups like Drastic, which explores the possibility of the virus’s origins being non-zoonotic. While Reed maintained a consistent story regarding his illness in various interviews, contradictions arose in his statements about dates and hospitalizations. Some experts express that his account could be useful for understanding early cases, yet others caution against over-reliance on anecdotal evidence due to the significant air pollution in Wuhan potentially leading to respiratory diseases misattributed as Covid-19.
Conjectures about the virus’s origin point to various locations and circumstances that could explain how Reed might have contracted the virus, such as a summer campus event in Southeast Asia or interactions during military games in Wuhan. However, these theories face challenges in terms of epidemiological consistency, including the lack of evidence for widespread cases at that time.
Furthermore, leading figures in virus research emphasize a need for cautious analysis of Reed’s story, suggesting that the high burden of respiratory diseases in Wuhan, exacerbated by air quality issues, complicates the narrative. This case exemplifies the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak and highlights ongoing debates about the origins of the virus.
