As flagged by Will Jones here on the Daily Sceptic, a recent Lancet study shows that asymptomatic people are only responsible for a small fraction of SARS-CoV-2 viral emissions, thus exploding the myth of extensive asymptomatic transmission, which was one of the central tenets of the COVID-19 response. But what about the original ‘asymptomatic spreader’ whose case was widely reported in the medical literature and the international media? Well, it turns out she was precisely not asymptomatic. She was sick and took medication.
On January 30th 2020, the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter from a group of German doctors and scientists documenting the case of a Chinese businesswoman from Shanghai who had recently travelled to Germany, where she was at the origin of Germany’s first cluster of infections despite the fact that she had not yet developed symptoms herself. See the below screen shot from the NEJM homepage circa the following day (courtesy of the Wayback Machine).
The lead author of the letter was Camilla Rothe of the Munich University Hospital. One of the co-authors was none other than Christian Drosten, the Chair of the Department of Virology at the Charité teaching hospital in Berlin, whose famous PCR-protocol would become the ‘gold standard’ for COVID-19 testing. Drosten’s article laying out the PCR protocol was published just one week earlier, on January 23rd, by the EU-funded journal Eurosurveillance, following a peer-review in record-breaking time of roughly 24 hours.
But the problem with the German researchers’ letter is that just four days later, on February 3rd, Science published an article revealing, based on official German sources, that the Chinese businesswoman did in fact have symptoms and had taken paracetamol to combat them. In fact, none of the 17 authors of the NEJM letter had ever even spoken to the supposedly asymptomatic ‘patient zero’, merely relying on the input of the four Germans who fell ill (and, incidentally, very quickly got better).
“Afterwards, however,” the Science article notes,
officials at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s federal public health agency, and the Health and Food Safety Authority of the state of Bavaria did talk to the Shanghai patient on the phone, and it turned out she did have symptoms while in Germany. According to people familiar with the call, she felt tired, suffered from muscle pain, and took paracetamol, a fever-lowering medication. (An RKI spokesperson would only confirm to Science that the woman had symptoms.)
As will be seen momentarily, the authors have in the meanwhile themselves confirmed that the woman took paracetamol.
Contacted by Science, Christian Drosten, who reportedly himself conducted the PCR-testing for the German group, was contrite. “I feel bad about how this went, but I don’t think anybody is at fault here,” he said, “Apparently the woman could not be reached at first and people felt this had to be communicated quickly.”
The Swedish Public Health Agency, as cited by Science, was less charitable in its assessment, describing the NEJM letter as containing “major flaws and errors”.
Nonetheless, despite the criticism and the apparent contrition of Drosten and one other author who was also contacted, the NEJM letter has not been retracted. It remains on the NEJM website here with the original full title: ‘Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany.’ As of this writing, according to the NEJM’s own count, it has been cited in the scholarly literature no less than 2527 times.
The article is not even accompanied by a correction. In the aftermath of the Science revelations, the authors merely added a supplementary appendix comprising a “timeline” of the evolution of the woman’s illness. Apparently, in the meanwhile, they had resolved to speak with the woman themselves. The “timeline” concedes that she had experienced symptoms in Germany and that she had taken paracetamol, but insists that she only reported doing so once and somehow prophylactically.
The German public health authority, the Robert Koch Institute, apparently being caught off-guard by the Science revelations, displayed similarly erratic behaviour in response. Whereas a spokesperson initially told Science that the RKI itself had sent a letter to the NEJM informing the journal of the authors’ error, a different spokesperson, as noted in a July update to the article, subsequently retracted this claim, saying that the letter “had never been sent” and that there had been “an internal misunderstanding”.
Even if the asymptomatic ‘patient zero’ turned out in fact to be symptomatic, the German Government, at any rate, has not wavered in its support for Rothe and her colleagues. Thus, on September 30th 2022, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded the German Order of Merit to none other than Claudia Rothe precisely for her NEJM article.
The tribute read out at the ceremony explained:
On January 27th 2020, the doctor [Rothe] diagnosed the first Corona infection in Germany. In doing so, she realised that the source of the infection was a person who at that time did not have any symptoms. She promptly published this discovery… The publication triggered a worldwide scientific dispute, at the end of which her findings were confirmed. Her early warning and her courage to stand by her finding made an important contribution to containing the Corona pandemic in the first phase. (author’s translation)
The identity of the Chinese ‘patient zero’ and of her German colleagues is also of some interest. They were in fact all employees of the German auto parts manufacturer Webasto. Although the Chinese employee was reported to be from Shanghai, Webasto had just recently, on September 7th 2019, opened a production facility in Wuhan.
As discussed in my earlier article, none other than then German Chancellor Angela Merkel was visiting Wuhan on that very day. In Wuhan, she stopped by the Tongji-Medical-College-affiliated Tongji Hospital: Tongji Medical College is the Chinese co-sponsor of a joint German-Chinese virology lab located in the city.
Chancellor Merkel was also on hand for the ceremonial opening of Webasto’s new facility, as documented in the below photo.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.
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As per The Lady of long ago… You sneer all you like, The Gentleman’s not for querying.
Rest in Peace, Maggie.
PS Are you aware of your spirit being alive with us down here somewhere? We need some of it.
If you subscribe to the view that history goes round in cycles, and if you think our present government is going to put us back where we were economically in the 1970s, then perhaps there’s some hope we may see a turnaround akin to the one Margaret oversaw…
I don’t see patterns like that but I fear the date you should have mentioned was 1945-51. Rationing continues and licenses were needed to buy building materials, for example.
And what of your fellow male posters who think women shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near politics, even to vote?
Don’t worry, I’m not expecting a response. After 3.5+ years on here, I know how this goes by now…
I be judgin’ the man by the man’s ideas and actions, Mogwai mi hearty
In other news, I see Trudeau has exited stage left… about time
REJOICE!
Wolves do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.
The Brits are in no position to sneer at anyone on any level. Genuinely an object of laughter and pity throughout the world now, including in the United States. SIxty years ago perhaps you could’ve talked about the crassness and coarseness of the Yanks. Today people like Trump look visionary in comparison to what our political class has to offer. He and the idiot kings that surround him are obviously woefully deficient when it comes to any true leadership but the Brits have sunk so low that they just simmer and boil and rot and sneer inside a goldfish bowl toilet, rolling in the muck of the greatness of their conceit.
Excellent last sentence. Almost poetic
Trump Derangement Syndrome is not just a disease of the Left. Those who you might think should be supporters and labelled far right by the BBC-Guardianistas also show TDS.
Honestly, I just want to see if he actually has any success in shrinking the state.
I’ve always assumed it was a lost cause and only inevitable collapse could bring about a reset.
I’m really curious to see whether this insane central planning system we have can be taken down by design. I remain skeptical, but also open minded.
If Trump has opportunities to sneer I hope he uses them to the max.
I love all the sneering, it just shows what bad loosers they all are. Each twisted little comment is as pointless as all the other twisted comments. They lost, end of.
I am waiting for someone to write a book about the irrational Trump Derangement Syndrome. The propaganda has gone deep.
Only 17 comments. I think I’m wasting my time writing this stuff. Time to take a long holiday.