New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that it was brought to the region mainly by travellers from Europe, not Asia.
“The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.
A separate team at NYU Grossman School of Medicine came to strikingly similar conclusions, despite studying a different group of cases. Both teams analysed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.
The research revealed a previously hidden spread of the virus that might have been detected if aggressive testing programmes had been put in place. On January 31, President Trump barred foreign nationals from entering the country if they had been in China — the site of the virus’s first known outbreak — during the previous two weeks.
Viruses invade a cell and take over its molecular machinery, causing it to make new viruses. An international guild of viral historians ferrets out the history of outbreaks by poring over clues embedded in the genetic material of viruses taken from thousands of patients.
In January, a team of Chinese and Australian researchers published the first genome of the new virus. Since then, researchers around the world have sequenced over 3,000 more. Some are genetically identical to each other, while others carry distinctive mutations.
Largest source in US
The Cook County Jail in Chicago, a sprawling facility that is among the largest jails in the nation, has emerged as the largest known source of US virus infections, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
At least 353 cases can be linked to the jail — more than have been connected to the USS Theodore Roosevelt; a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington; or the cluster centered in New Rochelle, New York.
The Cook county sheriff’s office, which operates the jail, said 238 inmates and 115 staff members had tested positive as of Wednesday.
The outbreak appears to confirm the concerns of many health officials, who warned that America’s overcrowded and unsanitary jails and prisons could be a major source of spread. Those warnings prompted the authorities across the country to release thousands of inmates to try to slow the infection, save lives and preserve medical resources.
Officials have promised a mass release of inmates from city jails to slow the spread of coronavirus. Critics say the government isn’t moving fast enough
Still, hundreds of diagnoses have been confirmed at local, state and federal correctional facilities — almost certainly an undercount, given a lack of testing and rapid spread — leading to hunger strikes in immigrant detention centres and demands for more protection from prison employee unions.
In Cook county, officials released hundreds of inmates early — all of whom had been convicted of nonviolent crimes like drug possession and disorderly conduct. Judges are continuing to examine the cases of each inmate to determine if bonds can be lowered for certain people.
