{"id":23146,"date":"2020-04-25T03:21:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T03:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virusreports.net\/coronavirus-in-italy-earlier-than-previously-thought\/"},"modified":"2020-04-25T03:21:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T03:21:09","slug":"coronavirus-in-italy-earlier-than-previously-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/virusreports.net\/coronavirus-in-italy-earlier-than-previously-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus in Italy earlier than previously thought"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Muri <\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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New York Daily News<\/span> |<\/span> <\/p>\n

Apr 24, 2020 <\/span> |<\/span> 5: 31 PM <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\"Medical <\/p>

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Medical staff tend to a patient in the emergency COVID-19 ward at the San Carlo Hospital in Milan, Italy, on April 16.(Antonio Calanni\/AP)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Coronavirus cases in Italy happened earlier than previously thought, according to a new study presented Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With nearly 200,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, Italy has been atop of a global list of infections and deaths caused by the new coronavirus since the early days of the outbreak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The first official case of a local infection was reported on Feb. 21, when a 38-year-old man checked himself into a local hospital in Codogno, a small city in Lombardy located 37 miles south of Milan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a matter of days, the number of infections grew exponentially. By March 19, Italy had surpassed the number of deaths registered in China, where the virus originated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The immediate surge in infections led scientists to suspect that COVID-19 had been around before it was officially identified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hoping to shed light on the origins of the outbreak in Italy, researchers with the Bruno Kessler Foundation, a research center located in Trento, looked at the country’s first known cases and analyzed the pace of contagion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We realized that there were a lot of infected people in Lombardy well before Feb. 20, which means the epidemic had started much earlier,” Stefano Merler, a mathematical modeler of infectious diseases transmission with the foundation, said in a news conference, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Breaking News Newsletter<\/h2>\n

As it happens<\/p>\n

Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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“In January for sure, but maybe even before. We’ll never know,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to Merler, the outbreak indicates that new coronavirus probably arrived in Italy via a group of people, instead of a single individual.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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