Both customer and store cashier wear masks inside a Chinese supermarket in Plano, a suburban city of Dallas, Texas, the United States, on April 3, 2020. (Photo by Dan Tian/Xinhua)

 
Chinese scientists called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to lead more tests on the people who showed similar symptoms with that of the coronavirus in the US in January to trace the origin of the virus in the country as the US confirmed more than 310,000 COVID-19 cases and as some Americans said online that they had tested positive for the antibodies of COVID-19 and were sickened in the first week of January with a "flu-like illness."

Chinese experts also warned on Sunday that the US federal government is unlikely to cooperate due to political reasons and the ignorance of the pandemic situation in the US is worse than non-transparency, and "blaming China" is still common among US political elites and mainstream media. 

Peter Antevy, a pediatrician and physician in Florida, said on Twitter on Friday that "In January I got very sick (flu-like illness but much worse)," and he "had no idea what it was. Today I checked my COVID-19 antibody status and it showed IgG+ only (sign of past infection)." In other words, it means positive. His tweet with an uploaded picture of the test result has drawn attention and received more than 13,000 likes and thousands of retweets and comments.

Antevy said in a comment that this was in the first week of January. Many Twitter users also said they had similar experiences or symptoms like raspy cough, chest tightness and fever, and they worried that the COVID-19 could have existed in the US long before the US government was aware of it. 

The first confirmed case in the US according to the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was on January 21. 

Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist at Wuhan University, told the Global Times that, according to the tweet and the picture uploaded by Antevy, it means he got infected at least a month ago. But this was his first test, so the accuracy is not 100 percent confirmed.

If Antevy and other Americans with similar experiences confirmed positive after the antibodies test, it could mean the COVID-19 existed in the US before the first confirmed case of the virus found in the US, Yang said. "It is not hard to find the answer. Just test more blood samples of the patients who had similar symptoms of the COVID-19 and flu before January 21 in the US."

"Normally, professional research teams will keep the blood samples of the patients in past decades, and I don't know whether US hospitals have this regulation or not," he noted, adding that from an academic perspective, "I suggested the WHO could urge more tests to the people with similar symptoms of COVID-19 in the earlier stage [before January 21] to confirm whether they were infected or not." 

A Beijing-based expert on epidemic prevention and control who requested anonymity echoed Yang's suggestion, and he told the Global Times this could help the scientists find the origin of the virus, and provide a more comprehensive data and valuable evidence for the professional teams to issue more correct measures to control the pandemic.

"Many patients of several countries had no contact with China at all. This has bothered the public and scientists for a very long time," he said.

The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt had no contact with China and arrived in Vietnam in early March, but there were not many cases in Vietnam. According to the Coronavirus Resource Center of John Hopkins University, Vietnam only had 241 confirmed cases by Sunday, Chinese experts said. So it is very necessary to test more people, they noted. 

But this might cause a bad feeling for the US as it might lead to guessing about the conspiracy theory and political impact such as "the US is hiding something from the public," but the more likely case is that they just had no idea about what was going on, which is worse than low transparency, warned Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. 

So the US is unlikely to cooperate, but even more tests are truly necessary based on academic need, Lü said. 

The US Navy Ship (USNS) Comfort docks at Pier 90 in New York, the United States, on March 30, 2020. The US Navy Ship (USNS) Comfort arrived in New York City on Monday, bringing 1,000 hospital beds to help relieve the city's overwhelmed hospital system amid COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Guang Yu/Xinhua)

 

Blaming China

The US has done badly in terms of transparency about the COVID-19 pandemic but blaming China seems like "political correctness" and a very effective approach to cover their inability and mistake in handling the pandemic in the US, as US President Donald Trump's approval rating didn't get impacted too much as most Americans believe that it was China's fault, Chinese analysts noted.

"This is truly pathetic. After the phone call between the leaders of the two countries, the war of words stopped to some extent, and discrimination and racist comments were reduced, but blaming China for 'covering the fact in the earlier stage' or 'lack of transparency' is still common among US mainstream opinions," Lü said.

The comedy talk show The Daily Show also released a series of videos recently to review how US officials and conservative media like Fox News downplayed the pandemic in the past two months until the situation in the US becomes the worst in the world.

Unfortunately, this is not the mainstream opinion in the US, and based on the humanitarian principle, China's assistance to the US will continue, and "we will keep doing things in line with humanitarian principles for  the US, but we don't expect the US to do anything in return," Lü said.

Photo taken on March 30, 2020 shows an almost-empty terminal building at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington of Virginia, the United States. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

 

Help from China

With the huge and increasing demand for medical supplies, more China-made supplies arrived in the US. Ironically, New York State, which is facing an extremely serious situation with 113,704 confirmed cases as of press time and couldn't get enough ventilators from the US federal government, is receiving more help from China.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that the Chinese government is helping "facilitate a donation" of 1,000 ventilators to his state. The donations arrived at JFK Airport later in the day. He thanked the Chinese government and Chinese businessman Jack Ma for the donation, CNN reported.

New York State is the state hardest hit by the COVID-19, and its officials also have a more positive attitude toward China-US relations, and more open and friendly to China-US cooperation. So naturally, China's assistance and cooperation could be realized more easily in that state.