Thousands of cases of the new coronavirus may have circulated early in the wuhan, China and Seattle pandemics, according to research from the University of Texas-Austin published in The Lancet.
The study suggests that by the time lockdowns were imposed in both cities, the early epicenters of their respective countries, the virus could have spread weeks.
Researchers analyzed data from two separate studies testing samples from patients with flu-like symptoms in January in Wuhan and in February and March in Seattle.
They determined the ratio of coronavirus-positive swabs and flu-positive swabs and compared this with Washington State and China surveillance data on flu cases.
The results indicated there could be more than 12,000 undetected but symptomatic cases in Wuhan by the time the city closes on Jan. 23. Meanwhile, by the time Seattle closed schools on March 9, there were probably more than 9,000 undetected cases, one-third of their children.
Specifically, they concluded that there were two unintended cases of coronavirus in Wuhan for every three cases of influenza in adults, indicating that it would likely spread through the city by mid-November 2019.
In Seattle, meanwhile, the estimate of the ratio was one undetected case for every nine flu cases in children. The ratio was 1 to 7 in adults. On March 9, when the city had 245 recorded cases of the virus, data suggest there could have been up to 9000 symptomatic cases.
“When the virus started spreading in cities in the United States and cities around the world, probably by the time we started detecting cases, it’s likely that the virus had spread for several weeks, if not months. , “Lauren Ancel Meyers, a professor of integrated biology and statistics and data science, told the Houston Chronicle.
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