On the Coronavirus Trail: Elusive Patient Zero Likely A Shrimp Vendor In Huanan Market

The term “patient zero” is misleading because no one will ever know when the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the novel coronavirus, mutated and made the transfer to its first human host. There is, however, a sense of accomplishment and progress when someone is named patient zero, in this case, a 57-year-old shrimp peddler from Wuhan, China.

The woman said she fell ill on Dec. 10, 2019, with cold-like symptoms, according to The Paper, a Chinese news outlet. Assuming a period of incubation, the actual date she contracted the yet-to-be-named pathogen was as early as late November and she could have been infecting other people before the symptoms appeared and before the days of social distancing.

Not knowing she was a carrier of a virus that would become a global “game-changer,” the vendor of tasty decapod crustaceans walked to a local clinic for treatment and then returned to her post at the Wuhan fish market.

The woman said she thinks she contracted the virus from a shared toilet in the meat market used by meat sellers and other individuals. She told The Paper of her experience, “[Translated] I felt a bit tired, but not as tired as in previous years. Every winter, I always suffer from the flu. So, I thought it was the flu.”

The next day, Dec. 11, an injection at a local clinic did not ease her symptoms so she headed to the Eleventh Hospital in Wuhan where her story continued. “The doctor at the Eleventh Hospital could not figure out what was wrong with me and gave me pills,” she said.

The pills proved ineffective so on Dec. 16, she entered one of the biggest hospitals in the city, Wuhan Union. She said, “By then I felt a lot worse and very uncomfortable. I did not have the strength or energy.”

At the hospital, she was told that other people from the market had checked into the hospital with similar symptoms that a doctor described as “ruthless." By New Year’s Day, the link between the seafood market and the illness had been made, making the woman one of the first to test positive for COVID-19.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which named the woman in an article, reported that the vendors who worked adjacent to her in the market and some of her relatives also caught COVID-19.

The woman, who will live with the dubious title of “patient zero” told the WSJ that, “[Translated] A lot fewer people would have died” in the country if the government had acted sooner. That sounds like a familiar phrase currently being heard in the U.S.