Coronavirus circulating in Italy as early as Sept 2019

Study from National Cancer Institute (INT) of Italy:

• The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019
• 11.6% of 959 healthy volunteers enrolled in a lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 had developed coronavirus antibodies well before February
• Four cases dating back to the first week of October were positive for antibodies, meaning they had got infected in September
• Italian researchers told Reuters in March that they reported a higher than usual number of cases of severe pneumonia and flu in Lombardy in the last quarter of 2019

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