Seattle lab only uncovered extent of Washington coronavirus outbreak after breaking government rules

https://news.yahoo.com/seattle-lab-only-uncovered-extent-211243456.html

Oliver O'Connell
,The Independent•March 11, 2020

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In Washington state, believed to be the location of the start of the US outbreak, the first patient identified had, predictably, visited Wuhan in China and then reported respiratory problems. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made an exception to its strict testing criteria to confirm the diagnosis.

The question was whether this initial patient had already spread the disease within the community. Dr Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert based in Seattle and part of a local flu study, sought permission to test the study’s collection of flu swabs from across the region to see if they were positive for coronavirus — which would prove community spread was already happening.

She was refused permission by all of the relevant authorities.

After holding off for a couple of weeks until late February, Dr Chu went ahead and began performing coronavirus tests on the samples, having seen that the virus was spreading outside of China.

It didn’t take long to find another case — a teenager who had not travelled out of the country. The virus had already established a foothold in the US and was spreading in the Seattle area.

“It must have been here this entire time,” Dr Chu told the Times. “It’s just everywhere already.”

After reporting their findings, the CDC ordered them to stop testing, arguing that the flu study could not be repurposed because the research subjects had not given permission for this type of testing. The lab was also not certified for clinical work.

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