The new coronavirus infected people in the US in mid-December 2019... about a month earlier than public health authorities found the first US case, according to a government study published Monday.
Scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found evidence of infection in 106 of 7,389 blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from residents in nine states across the US, according to the study published online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
需要注意的是，这些血液样本是红十字会在2019年12月13日至2020年1月17日期间收集的。
The scientists based their study on blood samples that the American Red Cross collected between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17 ...
在分析血液样本时，美国疾控中心的科学家在12月13日至12月16日期间收集的39份来自加州、俄勒冈州和华盛顿州的样本中发现了抗体。他们还发现，在12月30日至1月17日期间收集的马萨诸塞州、密歇根州、威斯康星州或爱荷华州，以及康涅狄格州或罗德岛的样本中，有67个样本带有抗体。
They did that by looking for antibodies specific to the new coronavirus in 90 of the samples. They said they found antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 in 84 of the samples, or nearly all of them.
《华尔街日报》在文中指出，这一研究结果也显示，越来越多的证据表明新冠病毒在中国境外出现的时间要早于先前的已知时间。研究反映出新冠病毒不仅可能比以前已知的更早在美国出现，而且研究人员也发现了证据，证明该病毒在美国的传播比检测结果表明的要广泛得多。
The United States on Wednesday recorded its single-worst daily death toll since the pandemic began, and on a day when Covid-19 hospitalizations also hit an all-time high, the pace of loss showed no signs of slowing any time soon.
