COVID Transmissions for 12-2-2020
When did the virus really emerge?
Good morning! It has been 381 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19.
Just some headlines today.
As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
Early evidence of COVID-19 in the United States?
A study in Clinical Infectious Diseases has identified samples from before January 2020 that indicate reactivity with SARS-CoV-2: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1785/6012472
This study looked at more than 7,000 blood samples collected by the Red Cross during blood donation operations, and found that 103 of them had meaningful reactivity against the virus. The samples in the study were collected between December 13th, 2019 and January 17th, 2020.
Now, I think this number is kind of low, and normally might suspect some kind of issue related to false positives. But the paper has some follow-up work where 90 of the samples are characterized, and they do seem to have specific activity.
This would indicate that SARS-CoV-2 may have entered the US earlier than we thought. That’s not terribly surprising, but it does start to make one wonder just how early the virus really emerged.
China mishandled early COVID-19 reporting
Also revealed earlier this week, leaked documents reveal that local government in Wuhan, China severely mishandled tracking and reporting of the first outbreak of COVID-19.
This is not surprising; when WHO teams arrived in late January it was widely reported that they improved the quality of case reporting and tracking in the local area. However, it suggests that the virus might have been spreading in China for a little bit longer than initially identified. This was already suspected for a number of reasons, but it’s newsworthy to have new evidence.
CNN has a story on this: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Reading: Wonderbook
Okay, so I’m not so much actually reading this one yet, I only ordered it and am waiting for it to arrive. Wonderbook is an illustrated guide to writing imaginative fiction like science fiction and fantasy, by Jeff Vandermeer, who I’ve recommended here before. It’s illustrated by Jeremy Zerfoss, who I haven’t.
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See you all next time.
Always,
JS