Texas News Texas Researchers Say COVID-19 Began Spreading Long Before Lockdowns KWBU | By Texas Standard Published August 18, 2020 at 10:48 AM CDT Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 5:30 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)/Public Domain Many people who were believed to have had the flu last winter in Wuhan, China and Seattle actually had COVID-19, a UT-Austin study found.