- According to a new research study, the coronavirus could start spreading in December 2019 in the state of Washington.
- Many initial coronavirus patients in the area were probably misdiagnosed with the flu.
- The US has since seen more than 5 million cases of coronavirus.
The coronavirus could enter the US in December 2019, according to a new report published in EClinicalMedicine. While it was long believed that coronavirus infections began in the U.S. in March, the report’s findings suggest that hundreds of individuals in the Seattle area were probably COVID-19 positive weeks, if not months, earlier than originally believed.
The report estimates that 2,268 children and 4,367 adults in the state of Washington came across the coronavirus sometime between February 24 and March 9. The report adds that the sowing of the coronavirus in the state is likely to have taken place somewhere between December 25, 2019, and January 15th. , 2020. Remember that it is believed that the coronavirus started in Wuhan, China, and first made its way to the United States when a man from the area traveled to Washington.
“The spread of COVID-19 in Wuhan and Seattle was much more widespread than first reported,” the study notes. “The virus probably spread months in Wuhan before it shut down. Given that COVID-19 appears to be overwhelmingly mild in children, our high estimate of symptomatic pediatric cases in Seattle suggests that there could have been thousands more mild cases at present. “
Not surprisingly, the study found that many of the early cases of COVID-19 were likely to be misdiagnosed early by health care providers. This would make sense, given that the coronavirus and the flu share many of the same baseline symptoms.
The report concludes:
The COVID-19 epidemics in Wuhan and Seattle were much more widespread than originally reported and were likely spread several weeks before they became apparent. The large discrepancy between confirmed cases and true prevalence highlights the difficulty of determining infection fatality of infection from easily obtainable COVID-19 data.
As of now, the number of coronavirus cases in the United States exceeded 5 million earlier in the week, prompting some politicians and health care professionals to make more serious efforts to fight the virus and prevent it from spreading even more.
In addition, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, who is currently the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, set up an op-ed in The New York Times requests another national shutdown:
We believe the choice is clear. We can continue to allow the coronavirus to spread throughout the country, or we can promise more restrictive storage, state by state, up to a maximum of six weeks to reduce the spread of the virus to less than one new case per 100,000 people per year. day .
That is the point at which we can limit the increase in new cases through aggressive measures for public health, just as other countries have done. But we are a long way from now.
Not too long ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci that the US could be in a world of trouble if we could not catch the daily number of new cases of coronavirus.
A lifelong Mac user and Apple enthusiast, Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech sector for over 6 years. His writing has appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK, and most recently, TUAW. While not writing and analyzing recent events with Apple, Yoni enjoyed capturing Improv shows in Chicago, playing football, and cultivating new addictions to TV shows, the latest examples being The Walking Dead and Broad City.
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