JAKARTA - Since the first confirmed case of the corona virus or COVID-19 in New York, on March 1, thousands of other cases have spread quietly throughout the city. The COVID-19 case is like an iceberg phenomenon in the United States.
The same thing happened in four other major cities in the US, namely Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle. The problem was revealed through research from Northeastern University presented by The New York Times.
Research that estimates the number of spreads by doing this modeling reveals that the spread of COVID-19 has spread in many cities in America in early February, when people are focusing on China.
As of March 1, there were 23 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in five major US cities. However, based on Northeastern modeling, it is estimated that there are actually around 28,000 infected people in those cities. In Boston, 2,300 cases were recorded, Seattle 2,300 cases, Chicago 3,300 cases, San Francisco 9,300 cases and New York 10,700 cases.
When political leaders consider the need for government to make policies; such as closing schools, enforcing work at home, to carrying out mass tests, the virus has spread guerrily.
"While behind the scenes, the spread of the virus is already silently threatening thousands of people," said Northeastern University Network Science Institute director Alessandro Vespignani, who led the research.
Modeling the spread of this disease is not an exact number, it is based on estimates of how often people interact and transmit the virus when they travel, work and socialize. The model also estimates all types of infection including those with mild or no symptoms and those who go undetected because they have not been tested.
Meanwhile, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert R. Redfield said last week, they succeeded in tracking down the first cases in the US and tracing anyone they came in contact with, before they spread out of control.
"February 27, this country has only 14 cases. We isolated and traced their contacts, and it was very successful. But then, the virus exploded, then exceeded the capacity of the available public health system," said Redfield was still quoted by The New York Times.
According to the research team, the Director of the Genome Technology Center from New York University, Adriana Heguy, revealed that some of the seeds of the outbreak in New York came from various locations in Europe, not directly from China. One of them is from Italy, which was reported to be the country with the most cases some time ago.
"Knowing the number of flights coming to New York from Italy, it's like watching a terrible train crash in slow motion," Heguy.
Responding to the latest estimates that the virus has been spreading quietly since the start of official cases being identified, Heguy is not surprised. "It doesn't seem surprising at all," he said.
In addition, other signs of the virus spreading quietly at the beginning of this year can be seen from the latest fact that the death case due to COVID-19 occurred on February 6. A few weeks earlier than the previous finding on February 29.
Based on the findings, scientists cautioned that the threat of a surge of cases from "invisible" cases could be enormous. "Even with this correction, cases are already in a very high position. And this is higher than I thought," said Professor of Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh, Donald Burke.
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