Research by the University of Notre Dame estimates that more than 100,000 others were already inflamed with COVID-19 until early March, when only 1,514 cases and 39 deaths were officially reported and before a national emergency was declared.how limited gaps in testing and surveillance in the initial phase of the epidemic led to so many undetected cases.The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We didn’t do enough tests,” said Alex Perkins, associate professor at the Decomposer of Biological Sciences, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and population biology who led the study.The number of untreated infections appears to be due to very low rates Case detection was a critical period, when the epidemic was beginning to take hold in that country.In part it was the availability of the tests, but another great component was the deal.The definitions and the fact that they were too restrictive at first..”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the first case shown of COVID-19 in the United States was reported in January. Early signs of a imaginable infection included respiratory symptoms and a holiday in Wuhan, China, where an outbreak occurred in December 2019..
“As we focused on other people returning from China, we ignored other people in Europe and, in fact, much of the initial planting of the virus in parts of the United States came from Italy,” Perkins said.
While awareness and fear about COVID-19 increased from January to March, it was not until February 29 that Washington became the first state to claim a state of emergency: definitive schools and restaurants and imposition restrictions on giant gatherings.states had followed, however, the lack of a coordinated national reaction created a number of variables, and each state decided for itself how to respond to an increasing number of cases.
By focusing their research on the period January to March, when little or no large-scale action had been taken, Perkins and his team were able to incorporate consistency into their models, while other studies give a concept of how school closures and lockouts have slowed the spread of the virus, examining transmission during the first 3 months of the year has given epidemiologists a clearer picture of how the virus gave printing and spread across the country.
“It was a very vital moment in terms of how this scenario started,” Perkins said.”We are looking for the United States now and comparing them to other countries such as South Korea or Germany, New Zealand or Vietnam, a number of countries that have done a much, much greater task of controlling transmission.The main differences come from the time, a time we observed in this study.These countries had good enough surveillance at the time, while we showed that by the end of February, the United States overlooked the vast majority of infections that already existed.This specific era we are focusing on is vital to understanding how we were given here.”
The study used a simulation style as of January 1, using knowledge reported through Johns Hopkins University on cases and deaths shown, taking into account asymptomatic infections, fatality rates and local transmission.Perkins and his team first generated an estimate of the total number of infections in the United States through March 12.Subsequently, the team took into account the evolution of symptomatic infection detection over time and estimated the number of infections not observed in this period.
A vital facet of research is the incorporation into the style of many uncertainties that occurred at the beginning of the epidemic in the United States, which Perkins says reflects the inherent nature of a new and emerging infectious disease.it also shows how critical containment methods are for infectious diseases.
“I think the fact that there were so many infections during this February is a testament to the importance and what we could have done in terms of containment,” Perkins said.”If you think of Ebola or SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) or other emerging infectious diseases, there have been cases in the United States or other countries where the government is moving temporarily to advance them.They isolate those people, they do, they look for contacts and the transmission goes out.many of us expected that to be the case with this disease.When we arrived in February, the challenge was so wonderful that containing the virus was not possible.