A Harvard Medical School study suggesting Covid-19 was spreading in China as early as August last year has been dismissed as "ridiculous" by the government.
Scientists, meanwhile, agree the paper offers no convincing evidence of when the outbreak began - with the first case reported in Wuhan in December.
The research, which has not been peer-reviewed, used satellite imagery of hospital car parks in Wuhan and data for symptom-related queries on search engines for things such as “cough” and “diarrhoea”.
The study’s authors said increased hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan preceded the documented start of the coronavirus pandemic. “While we cannot confirm if the increased volume was directly related to the new virus, our
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