BOSTON (WHDH) - An event that was held at a hotel in Boston in late February helped coronavirus spread across many parts of the world, resulting in an explosion of nearly 20,000 cases, new genetic data indicates.
When Biogen executives gathered at the Long Wharf Hotel for a conference that ended on Feb. 27, no one was aware of an infected guest who transmitted the highly contagious virus to a number of people, the Washington Post reported. Those people then brought the disease home to the surrounding Bay State suburbs, Indiana, North Carolina, Slovakia, Australia, and Singapore.
Dozens of other attendees tested positive for the virus in the weeks after the conference and that same viral sub-strain spread through a pair of homeless shelters in Boston, infecting hundreds, according to the report.
“This illustrates the fact that this is a transmissible virus that is able to move very rapidly among different parts of our society,” Prof. William Hanage of the Harvard School of Public Health said.
Since the start of the outbreak, 54 researchers at several institutes including the Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health have studied nearly 800 coronavirus genomes.
Researchers were reportedly able to link a mutated form of coronavirus in sickened people from the Biogen conference to cases in France after identifying two letters in the virus’ 30,000-character genetic code that had switched during the replication process.
Viruses carrying the conference’s mutation spread like wildfire, infecting hundreds in Boston, as well as people from Alaska to Europe.
As of July, researchers are said to have found that the mutation was present in about 33 percent of cases sequenced in the Bay State, in addition to about three percent of all genomes studied across the United States.
The study, which is said to be the largest genomic analysis of any U.S. outbreak, also highlighted the role that indoor “super-spreading events” play in accelerating and sustaining transmission, according to the report.
Prior to the Biogen conference, there had been only 15 documented cases of coronavirus in the country, with almost all of them being travelers or their close contacts. By March 4, the company was instructing everyone who had attended the meeting to quarantine.
Massachusetts health officials later identified 97 cases among people who attended the conference and those they lived with. Twenty-eight of them reportedly carried the conference’s mutation.
Sequencing also revealed that the virus evolved as the Biogen conference wore on. Scientists reportedly found two mutations of the virus replicating in a single set of lungs.
In a statement, Biogen said, “February 2020 was nearly a half year ago, and was a period when general knowledge about the coronavirus was limited. We were adhering closely to the prevailing official guidelines. We never would have knowingly put anyone at risk. When we learned a number of our colleagues were ill, we did not know the cause was COVID-19, but we immediately notified public health authorities and took steps to limit the spread.”
Dave O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told the Post that if the United States continues to repeat mistakes like February, the same patterns of transmission will keep unfolding.
At this time, it’s not clear how the Biogen infections spread to Boston’s homeless community.
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