New study gives China opportunity to blame Brazil for pandemic

There has been much conjecture and conspiratorial theorizing about the origin of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which kicked off the Covid-19 pandemic that has so far claimed over half a million lives. The first official and confirmed case of human infection by the novel coronavirus was recorded by municipal health authorities in Wuhan (Central China) on December 31, 2019, and ever since scientists have been trying to identify the path of the virus until its first detection.

One spokesman from the Chinese foreign ministry tweeted a conspiracy theory according to which the virus was brought to the country by 300 athletes from the U.S. Army, in Wuhan for the 7th Military World Games in October 2019. Meanwhile, China’s mainstream media is giving credence to a preliminary study in Brazil, suggesting the virus may have been present in the country in late November of last year.

A group of Brazilian scientists found traces of Sars-CoV-2 in samples of human sewage collected in the country on November 27. If confirmed, this would mean that the virus was present in Brazil more than three months before the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

China seizing the opportunity

This preliminary discovery was quickly spread by several Chinese news outlets. The South China Morning Post wrote that the study “adds to suggestions that the virus spread undetected before the alarm was first raised in China...