MILAN — The authors of a study showing that the new coronavirus was circulating in Italy earlier than experts had previously believed said on Thursday their data did not dispute the origins of COVID-19 as they defended the accuracy of their findings.
The Italian researchers’ findings showed that 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.
If those findings are correct, scientists said it could change the history of the origin of pandemic, raising questions about when and where the virus first emerged.
The novel coronavirus was fi…
Keep on reading: Researchers say study on COVID-19 in Italy doesn’t dispute virus origins