The fragile testimony of Connor Reed, the man who caught Covid-19 before anyone else

Who is patient zero of Covid-19? Five years later, the mystery persists. But in a testimony that went unnoticed at the time, a young Welshman claims to have had the first symptoms of the disease on November 25, 2019 in Wuhan (China). That is, two weeks before the first commonly accepted case – a shrimp seller at the Huanan seafood market – and two months before the pandemic spread around the world.

The case of Connor Reed, as it is called, has never been confirmed by doctors. Should we take it seriously? Since then, its detailed history has caused a frenzy in scientific forums and social networks.

Far from being anecdotal, it could completely change the way we tell the story of the virus’s origin. It all depends on how much credence is given to this Welsh expat’s testimony: important to Drastic (for “radical decentralized autonomous research team”), an informal group of self-taught pro-lab leak researchers; zero for scientists who defend the thesis of a zoonotic jump (a disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans) mid-November on the market.

The British face of confinement in Wuhan

Connor Reed’s name first appeared on February 3, 2020 in the tabloid. the sun. is presented like a “25-year-old teacher, who doctors diagnosed with coronavirus in Wuhan two months ago”. The article relates that this North Wales native contracted the virus in the autumn, thought he was dying and drank grog until the illness passed.

In France, he immediately became the man who “He claims to have been cured with whiskey and honey.”while along the English Channel it appears as “the first Briton to contract Covid-19”. The young expatriate with smiling eyes, available, accessible and smiling, becomes one of the good clients of the English-speaking media, from the most gossipy to the most serious.

On March 4, the Emaila conservative British tabloid, publishes his diary of illness, a long account of two months of suffering and convalescence. He details getting a cold on November 25, 2019, going to the hospital for a chest This retrospective document would be the oldest known case of a patient suffering from Covid-19 who has testified.

“Contradictory elements”

It’s right? Connor Reed is no longer here to answer for it. Returning to Wales, he died in October 2020 of an overdose during a night out with his roommate. But the British left numerous interviews and footprints on social networks.

Since 2021 it has been the subject of research, in particular by the Drastic group. Because the Welsh story, if proven, would show that the Sars-CoV-2 virus was perhaps already circulating before the first cases in the seafood market. For others, he is a citizen with confusing memories, even a mythomaniac.

Certain elements support his good faith. From one interview to the next, he maintains a consistent story: a harmless cold that degenerates into a cough, fever, and then pneumonia within two weeks. He also rightly corrects some inaccurate media reports, noting that he has never seen bats or koalas in the “fish market”as he calls it, where he believes he contracted the virus (unless he caught it from his kitty, he’s not sure).

Other details are more worrying. To Reuters, he claims to have had Covid-19 “in December”not in November. HE Sun He speaks of a hospitalization of two weeks, he of one or two days. He also mentions rumors. “tried” curfew at the end of December, while confinement will only be discussed from January 20.

“It is a difficult case, in which we have contradictory elements, admits Gilles Demaneuf, French engineer and member of the Drastic collective, who tracked down his school and some of his friends. Sometimes he extrapolated, there were approximations, distortions in his interviews. But all things considered, it’s more believable than I initially thought. » This is even very useful testimony for Drastic, which defends the thesis of a virus born in the laboratory or, in any case, outside the market.

Evidence of an epidemic before the market?

The group thus cites the Welshman in a long file dating from 2023 on the “official case limits in Wuhan in 2019”. In essence, the idea that the epidemic began “starting in September”that the market would have been only one “superspreader event”opening the way to hypotheses other than zoonosis. “We conclude that it was most likely contaminated at school, although we cannot be 100% sure”explains to World The Engineer2, Canadian Internet user, also a member of Drastic, who is preparing a publication on the subject.

But then where would the virus come from? On the basis of evidence that he acknowledges to be “very weak”The Engineer2 speculates that Connor Reed may have been infected with Sars-CoV-2 during a summer campus he attended in August 2019, in Thailand and Indonesia. Or at the Wuhan military games, where athletes reported illnesses and several of their colleagues worked as interpreters. Or even by the father of a student who works in a P3 animal laboratory at Wuhan University Hospital. But not in the Huanan market, too far from his home, he considers.

Each of these hypotheses implies a different virus emergence scenario, but they all raise coherence problems. “If Connor had had Covid, there probably would have been hundreds of other Covid cases at the same time”challenges Peter Miller, a physics student who won a prize in a debate on the origin of Covid. And remember that with the rate of replication of the virus, if it had appeared at the beginning of November, by the end of the year there would have been 256 times more cases. However, retrospective serosurveillance studies showed that its circulation was almost zero at that time.

Strong epistemological reservations

So how can we explain the story of Connor Reed? Perhaps due to a diagnostic error. The air in Wuhan is contaminated (235 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particles at the end of 2019, a level considered very unhealthy) and causes numerous pneumonias. “We need to move away from what seems like an attractive anecdote, invites microbiologist Michael Worobey, author of a landmark study on the first cases on the market. The burden of respiratory diseases [à Wuhan] It’s colossal. » This city of more than 12 million inhabitants suffers an average of more than three respiratory infections per person and 750,000 serious pneumonias each year.

So many cases that can pass for Covid-19 without being Covid-19. “There was no written confirmation [de diagnostic] at that time, to leave no trace, which fits quite well with what Connor describes. But without written evidence there is no proof.”admits Gilles Demaneuf.

The Welsh expatriate wrote his own notebooks more than three months after the alleged events, at the risk of his memory failing. “There is a good chance that his memories have been reshaped by media discussions on the subject.”says philosopher of science Kenny Easwaran. In France, the then Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, claimed to have discovered the existence of the disease on December 20, 2019 in a blog in English, while the oldest online references date from the 30th, ten days later.

Therefore, uncertainty persists and the Welshman’s testimony, published in a newspaper fond of sensationalism, calls for caution. “Anyone who claims otherwise has confused ideas about what does and does not constitute sound scientific evidence, or is intentionally and cynically exaggerating it.”dismisses Michael Worobey, who, like many defenders of the zoonosis thesis, disapproves of Drastic’s conclusions and methods.