I ran across two stories which provide additional information on the “stay at home” directives and business lockdowns that have reduced economic activity all over the world. The first story is from Reuters and comes from France:
PARIS (Reuters) – A French hospital which has retested old samples from pneumonia patients discovered that it treated a man who had COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, nearly a month before the French government confirmed its first cases.
Yves Cohen, head of resuscitation at the Avicenne and Jean Verdier hospitals in the northern suburbs of Paris, told BFM TV that scientists had retested samples from 24 patients treated in December and January who tested negative for the flu.
“Of the 24, we had one who was positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 27,†he told the news channel on Sunday.
The samples had all initially been collected to detect flu using PCR tests, the same genetic screening process that can also be used to detect the presence of the novel coronavirus in patients infected at the time the sample is collected.
Each sample was retested several times to ensure there were no errors, he added.
while the other story was mentioned here in comments yesterday. From CNBC:
Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking†finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.
The preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients, Cuomo said at his daily briefing.
It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home. The next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%.
The second story suggests that the “stay at home” directives and lockdowns have not been effective while the first story suggests a mechanism. If SARS-CoV-2 was being contracted via community spread in France in late December and, presumably, in China earlier than that, doesn’t it suggest that it has been contracted via community spread in the U. S. earlier than had been recognized as well? Contracting the disease from those who are asymptomatic and the large number of “essential” workers explains just about everything else.
In other words you don’t need to assume non-compliance to explain the findings.
The Stayhomers are a self selected group. Having judged themselves vulnerable. But how in hell does transmission occur?
My first guess is visitors, family.
Noticed yesterday that deaths in N.Y. and adjacent states are about 2/3, or 50,000 of the total.
There must have been early and dense spread in the area.
Our rulers have opened up state recreation areas for RV limited camping. No tent camping will be allowed. Said they don’t have enough parks department officers to enforce social distancing. Who wants to go camping with a police escort anyway?
On the first study, that seems to me to indicate that someone in France contracted it, but did not infect anyone else, which is why there is no other record of infection for nearly a month. Some people infect twelve or more, some none. Looking at the phylogeny tree at Nextstrain, the earliest spread to Europe they find is in Belgium btw/ 12/27/19 and 1/20/20, so it wouldn’t unsettle the general timeline.
On the second story, I’m not sure hospital admissions in New York over the course of three recent days is represenative of anything — this is after the huge outbreak. So the people being admitted necessarily are the people who weren’t previously infected or killed, this may reflect the tail of the infection, not representative of the whole.
That’s a big reason I’m somewhat skeptical of the scenario that CuriousOnlooker presented in another comments thread. I’m not convinced his assumptions hold up. I think there are variations in susceptibility among individuals and in how many individuals to whom any given infected individual will spread the virus. I can’t help but wonder if one asymptomatic superspreader who just happens to be a UPS or FedEx driver or grocery clerk will counteract the self-seclusion of 1,000 others.
I’m picturing a delivery driver with a runny nose painting the packages as he bends over them to read the address…..Could happen.
A study from San Francisco announced yesterday produced entirely different results than NY. The testers offered free tests to everyone in a 16 block area and 2.1% of the 4,160 people tested were positive. Of those who tested positive, 90% “reported being unable to work from home” because they had to work outside of the home, were furloughed or unemployed. It looks like they may have targeted what was expected to be a working class area and 95% of those testing positive were Latinx, so this presents a different snap shot.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/editorspicks/article/90-of-people-who-tested-positive-for-COVID-19-in-15247476.php#item-85307-tbla-8
Also:
“While turnout for the study [a little over half of residents] was considered a success, researchers said those people who didn’t access testing feared being tracked by government agencies and the potential negative impact on local businesses if the neighborhood is branded a COVID-19 hotspot. Some also were afraid of the potential consequences of isolation if they tested positive.”
I would be cautious on the French story.
French Twitter had people looking at the test data and suspect it is false positive. A false positive due to chance or lab contamination is likely the cause.
The prove the claim; they should sequence this positive sample and publish it; false positives cannot be sequenced.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Yes, that would probably be prudent.