'Additional respect emerges for the highly contagious nature of Covid-19' after looking at the findings of a CDC report that traced how the coronavirus outbreak started in a Washington state community back in March, Kent Sepkowitz writes for CNNOpinion
Kent Sepkowitz is a CNN medical analyst and a physician and infection control expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
Much of what we understand about the transmission of infectious diseases is derived from odd outbreaks in far-flung places. For example, we learned more about measles from its rapid spread on an isolated Polynesian island in 1911 and about influenza from people stuck on a grounded plane in Alaska in 1979.
Dr. Kent Sepkowitz Add to this important list a startling and revealing outbreak of Covid-19 affecting as many as 52 of 61 people at a choir practice in March. The story was detailed this week in a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health officials in Skagit County, Washington, which lies between Seattle and the Canadian border, meticulously reconstructed the outbreak.
Ex-CDC chief: There will be at least 100,000 Covid-19 deaths by end of May 01:12 The choir members were almost all women with an average age of 69 years. Of those with symptoms, 32 tested positive for Covid-19. Another 20 were not tested but were considered probable cases based on symptoms and association with the lab-proven cases. Three of the 52 were hospitalized, including two who died from the infection about two weeks after developing symptoms.
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