Incredibly valuable reporting on how COVID spread across the US and opportunities we missed to slow it. So much we all should take away from this. 1/x
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
When the White House announced there were 15 cases, there were an estimated 2000 infections already in the country. While travelers were banned from China, 1,000 infected travelers arrived from around Asia, Europe and rest of world 2/x
In NYC, at a time when only 1 case was detected, there had been an estimated 10,000 cases. 3/x
We should have been doing extensive diagnostic testing around the country starting in January and February as many pub health experts were calling for then. 4/x
Diagnostic testing was crucial then, now, and will be until this pandemic is over – calls to slow down diagnostic testing will drive us backwards toward a time when we had no idea what was going on and are wrong. 5/x
Super spreading events accelerated the spread in many places – For example, Mardi Gras, a Georgia funeral, church rally in Arizona. Consistent with much other evidence that superspreading occurs in large events and drives the pandemic. 6/x
A few weeks after social distancing and stay at home orders in place around the country in March, exponential growth of outbreak slowed. 7/x
.@CDCgov should be doing analyses like this NYT story to understand pandemic. This kind of analysis should be encouraged and permitted by Administration. Information needs to flow freely to understand exactly what happened, is happening, as it has in past outbreaks.8/end
