Boston Medical Conference Linked To As Many As 300,000 Cases Of COVID-19 In The U.S.

A two-day medical conference held in Boston in February of 2020 was proven to be a super-spreader event, with more than 100 cases of COVID-19 tied back to it by contract tracers. But now, a team of scientists believes this one event could’ve been the catalyst for the spread of a strain of the coronavirus that was still circulating as of November 1st.

According to CBS, Biogen’s prestigious medical conference on February 26-27 continued as planned, even has the medical world anticipated the coming impact of COVID-19.

A team of scientists using genetic sequencing now believe that between 205,000 and 300,000 coronavirus cases across the country can be traced back to that one conference in Boston. The scientists have published their findings in the journal Science on Thursday.

“Genome data reveal that the impact of the conference was far larger than the approximately 100 cases directly associated with the event,” the scientists wrote.

The authors reached their conclusions after analyzing the genetic code of the coronavirus. Like all viruses, the one that causes COVID-19 has the ability to mutate as it spreads from person to person. The scientists tracked the genetic changes in the virus across a population, which helps them understand how and where it has spread.

Jacob Lemieux, the study’s lead author, told CBS MoneyWatch, “It’s as if some viruses have polka dots and others don’t, and we follow those polka-dot viruses across time and space.”

Scientists compared a strain of the virus, with samples from 28 out of 100 people who contact tracers confirmed attended the conference in Boston, with a national database of coronavirus infection information.

Their data found that the conference, back in February, was key in spreading the virus in Boston. They even found that through November 1, nearly half of the COVID-19 cases in the four counties that make up the Boston area had the same genetic marker that linked the virus to the conference at the start of this year, tying that event to 51,000 cases in the area.

This particular strain’s genetic marker started appearing in other states in early March, especially prevalent in places where those who had attended the conference returned to their home environment. Data shows 29% of those conference linked cases showed up in Florida, as well as Indiana and North Carolina. The particular strain of the virus was also traced as far away as Australia and Slovakia.