The coronavirus appears to have been circulating at low levels in the Big Apple since early February, about a month before the first case was confirmed in the city, new research reveals.
A study published this week, based on more than 5,000 plasma samples collected from patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, revealed that some patients had antibodies to the infection as early as the week ending February 23.
Considering the time taken to produce antibodies, that likely means they were infected about two weeks earlier, Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, who led the study, told the New York Times.
“You’re probably talking very early in February,” said Krammer. “It seems like there was at least low-level circulation.”
The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, but several experts backed its credibility, according to the Times.
Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said it appears that February 19 was “the arrival that fueled things,” but noted that “it’s great that we all have similar numbers.”
The first confirmed case of coronavirus in the city occurred in a 30-year-old woman who had recently traveled to Iran.
The blood plasma samples used in the Mount Sinai study came from two separate groups: patients who visited the hospital emergency department and those who underwent regular screening examinations as part of obstetric care, regular office visits and treatment, and elective or planned surgeries, among other types. Be careful, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Samples were collected from the week of February 9.
Investigators said they saw a “marked increase” in antibody-positive samples within the emergency department group from the week ending March 22.
In the detection group, this increase was detected one week later.
The researchers also found that, for the week ending April 9, an estimated 1.62 million people in the city had been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the Journal.
However, they said the samples are not representative of the entire population.
But similar findings published by state officials in an April study indicated that one in five Big Apple residents examined in the state’s first round of tests for antibodies to the coronavirus were exposed to the infection.
.
