COVID-19 may have been spreading in the US at least a month before first case was reported, CDC study says

 

Not surprising.  You don't find what you aren't looking for because you don't expect it, and that you don't have good tests for, even if you are.  And there would have been just a few cases at the beginning, so since it doesn't have distinctive signs, it's would have been surprising if the first cases were identified.

https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-may-spreading-us-200817364.html

USA TODAY
Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Wed, December 2, 2020, 11:58 AM EST

The novel coronavirus may have been circulating in the United States undetected weeks before the first case was reported in 2020, a new government study suggests.

Study authors came to the conclusion after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found evidence of coronavirus antibodies in blood collected in December 2019, according to the report published Monday in the Clinical Infections Journal.

Researchers analyzed blood donations collected by the American Red Cross from residents in nine states between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17 and found evidence of antibodies in 106 out of 7,389 samples.

Antibodies also were found in 67 blood donations in January from states that didn’t report a widespread outbreak at the time, such as Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

The first COVID-19 patient was diagnosed Jan. 20 in Washington state, according to the CDC website. However, researchers found antibodies in blood sampled as early as Dec. 13.

“It’s possible that we had low level of prevalence earlier … and it’s not really surprising,” said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who was unaffiliated with the study.

Experts say the coronavirus could have been in the U.S. before the first case was recorded in January, but it’s also possible serological testing may have picked up a different strain or a different coronavirus altogether.

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