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By Benedict Carey and James Glanz
By the time New York City confirmed its first case of the coronavirus on March 1, thousands of infections were already silently spreading through the city, a hidden explosion of a disease that many still viewed as a remote threat as the city awaited the first signs of spring.
Hidden outbreaks were also spreading almost completely undetected in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, long before testing showed that each city had a major problem, according to a model of the spread of the disease by researchers at Northeastern University who shared their results with The New York Times.
Even in early February — while the world focused on China — the virus was not only likely to be spreading in multiple American cities, but also seeding blooms of infection elsewhere in the United States, the researchers found.
In five major U.S. cities, as of March 1
there were only 23 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
But according to the Northeastern model, there could have actually been
about 28,000 infections in those cities by then.
Boston
2,300
Seattle
2,300
Chicago
3,300
San Francisco
9,300
New York
10,700
Note: Numbers are median estimates that the Northeastern model calculated for each city. The true number of infections could have been substantially higher or lower than shown here.
By Derek Watkins
As political leaders grappled in February with the question of whether the outbreak would become serious enough to order measures like school closures and remote work, little or no systematic testing for the virus was taking place.
“Meanwhile, in the background, you have this silent chain of transmission of thousands of people,” said Alessandro Vespignani, director of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, who led the research team.
Modeling the spread of a disease is inherently inexact, involving estimates of how often people come in contact and transmit the virus as they travel, work and socialize. The model estimates all infections, including those in people who may experience mild or no symptoms and those that are never detected in testing.
Other disease researchers said the findings of Dr. Vespignani’s team were broadly in line with their own analyses. The research offers the first clear accounting of how far behind the United States was in detecting the virus. And the findings provide a warning of what can recur, the researchers say, if social distancing restrictions are lifted too quickly.
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that American health officials had been successful in tracking the first known cases and their contacts in the United States before the outbreak got out of control.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/coronavirus-early-outbreaks-cities.html
- April 23, 2020
By the time New York City confirmed its first case of the coronavirus on March 1, thousands of infections were already silently spreading through the city, a hidden explosion of a disease that many still viewed as a remote threat as the city awaited the first signs of spring.
Hidden outbreaks were also spreading almost completely undetected in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, long before testing showed that each city had a major problem, according to a model of the spread of the disease by researchers at Northeastern University who shared their results with The New York Times.
Even in early February — while the world focused on China — the virus was not only likely to be spreading in multiple American cities, but also seeding blooms of infection elsewhere in the United States, the researchers found.
In five major U.S. cities, as of March 1
there were only 23 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
But according to the Northeastern model, there could have actually been
about 28,000 infections in those cities by then.
Boston
2,300
Seattle
2,300
Chicago
3,300
San Francisco
9,300
New York
10,700
Note: Numbers are median estimates that the Northeastern model calculated for each city. The true number of infections could have been substantially higher or lower than shown here.
By Derek Watkins
As political leaders grappled in February with the question of whether the outbreak would become serious enough to order measures like school closures and remote work, little or no systematic testing for the virus was taking place.
“Meanwhile, in the background, you have this silent chain of transmission of thousands of people,” said Alessandro Vespignani, director of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, who led the research team.
- Thanks for reading The Times.
Modeling the spread of a disease is inherently inexact, involving estimates of how often people come in contact and transmit the virus as they travel, work and socialize. The model estimates all infections, including those in people who may experience mild or no symptoms and those that are never detected in testing.
Other disease researchers said the findings of Dr. Vespignani’s team were broadly in line with their own analyses. The research offers the first clear accounting of how far behind the United States was in detecting the virus. And the findings provide a warning of what can recur, the researchers say, if social distancing restrictions are lifted too quickly.
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week that American health officials had been successful in tracking the first known cases and their contacts in the United States before the outbreak got out of control.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/coronavirus-early-outbreaks-cities.html
