Breaking News: Cedars-Sinai Says America’s 'Real’ Coronavirus Cases May Be Already More Than 9,000
Source : US Coronavirus News Mar 10, 2020 4 years, 9 months, 1 week, 6 days, 11 hours, 58 minutes ago
US Coronavirus Updates: Researchers from Cedar-Sinai are saying that more than 9,000 people in America may have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus as of March 1
st, a figure much higher than reported, researchers say.
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The medical and epidemiology investigators at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles told media, "This suggests that the opportunity window to contain the epidemic of COVID-19 in its early stage is closing."
As most the cases of COVID-19 appear to be mild or even without any symptoms, the researchers noted it can make it difficult to identify infected individuals who may be spreading the nee coronavirus.
The medical and epidemiology experts said they chose "very conservative" methods to estimate the number of Covid-19 cases.
The researchers wrote in a medical center news release, "This makes our current estimation of more than 9,000 likely to be an underestimation of the true number of infected individuals in the U.S."
The research paper has not been peer-reviewed and should be considered preliminary until that time. It is posted online on a forum where physicians and researchers share information.
First author Dr Dalin Li, a research scientist in the Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai told Thailand Medical News via a phone interview, "We decided making the results public before peer review as it will be critical and important for timely and informed public health decision-making. We are also making the model available to the research community so that others can build upon it."
So far there are 708 reported cases in the US covering 37 states and 27 deaths so far.
Many doctors are also warning that the numbers can be much higher.
Another major problem despite reassurances from various health agencies, hospitals and health authorities are complaining that they have no access to test-kits despite the CDC and even the Surgeon-General making claims that there are more than even test-kits.
The researchers at Cedars-Sinai only considered COVID-19 cases "imported" directly into the United States from the area of Wuhan, China, before Jan. 23 for the study. That's when the Chinese government locked down the city where the outbreak began.
The researchers estimated based on their computer modeling, the total number of people in the United States infected with coronavirus as of March 1 to be between 1,043 and 9,484.
These were based on many varied assumptions. The first figure assumed that current preventive procedures such as quarantining and screening international travelers at airports had reduced transmission of the virus by as much as 25% in unidentified cases. The second figure assumed no preventive measures had been undertaken.
Senior author Dr. Dermot McGovern, professor of medicine and biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai said that the difference between the lowest and highest estimates is important when it comes to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Dr McGovern added, "Our model suggests that even moderately effective population interventions to reduce transmission can have a
profound impact on the scale of the epidemic. This finding supports the role of public health interventions in controlling this disease."
Some of these measures include social distancing to keep people from interacting too closely or frequently, personal hygiene, and restricting large gatherings for events such as sports.
The CDC, NIH and the US coronavirus task force team declined any comments when we questioned them about the study.
Reference:
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.06.20031880
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