Boston Biogen Conference Led To Over 300,000 Covid-19 Coronavirus Cases, Study Says

Typically, you may want a biotech conference to have an impact. But leading to over 300,000 Covid-19 coronavirus cases may not be what you have in mind.

A study just published in the journal Science showed how what happened in Boston, MA, didn’t stay in Boston. An international biotechnology conference that took place in Beantown on February 26-27 soon became a “superspreader” event. Or rather a “superduperspreader” event. Or perhaps even a “superduperpooperOMGWTHspreader” event.

Keep in mind that late February was when things in the U.S. were still pretty much business as usual. By that time, political leaders were undoubtedly aware of the threat that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) posed. After all, the World Health Organization (WHO) had already declared the SARS-CoV2 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30. That should have gotten countries like the U.S. to say, “what the PHEIC,” and launch some kind of response. It’s not as if the WHO declares a PHEIC for just anything such as a Nutella shortage or Kim throwing something at Khloe on the reality TV show Keeping Up with Kardashians. Since 2009, there have been only six such PHEIC declarations. By late February, a number of other countries had already sprung into action.

Nevertheless, President Donald Trump’s administration hadn’t yet implemented broader response measures or uniformly warned the public about the threat. An NBC News headline on February 26 blared “Americans should prepare for coronavirus crisis in U.S., CDC says.” That was a bit like saying, “you really should pull up your pants during a job interview.” That week U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar had said: “The immediate risk to the general American public remains low. But, as we have warned, that has the potential to change quickly.”

That meant Americans weren’t really putting precautions into place yet. People could still sing Ariana Grande’s, “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” in close proximity to each other. Life was relatively “normal.” Toilet paper was still in stock. Restaurants, bars, and barbershops were still operating with few limitations.

Therefore, the biotechnology conference went ahead as planned. Among the attendees were executives from the biotechnology company Biogen, who had unknowingly been infected with SARS-CoV2 just days prior at the company’s annual leadership meeting. Therefore, they carried secrets that even they didn’t know, sort of the opposite of being sexy and knowing it. Articles in the Boston Globe and the New York Times described the resulting sequence of events. And here is a what a WCVB Channel 5 Boston news report around that time said:

Basically, a bunch of interactions occurred at the meeting and voilà the virus spread in the conference like beard oil in a hipster beard. Ah, but this beard ended up being a larger than anticipated.

At the time, contact tracing performed by public health officials had identified 99 Covid-19 coronavirus cases resulting from this conference. They may have gotten 99 problems back then, but the spread of the virus certainly didn’t stop there, which brings us to the Science study.

For the study, a team of researchers used NP samples collected in March from 28 of the 99 Covid-19 coronavirus positive cases. In this case, NP doesn’t stand for “no problem” or “nice pizza.” In fact, quite the contrary. NP stands for nasopharyngeal, as in push a cotton swab all the way up your nose until you feel like your brain is twerking. Sequencing the genomes of viruses obtained from the NP samples revealed viruses with a particular mutation: the C2416T mutation. This name may sound like a moderately strong password for a website but instead is the designation for a mutation that had never been seen before in the U.S. prior to the biotech conference. The precursors of this C2416T variant had already become fairly widespread in Europe in January and February. The team also found viruses with a G26233T mutation, which hadn’t been apparent in the U.S. before the conference either.

So it looks like the Boston biotech conference was the debut of two new SARS-CoV2 variants in America. And what happens when conference goers travel back home after a big meeting? They bring stuff back with them such as swag bags, business cards, misty water colored memories, and viruses. The researchers then checked availabel databases to track the spread of the C2416T and G26233T variants.

Indeed, these two new variants seemed to really get around after the conference. As of November 1, there was a cumulative total of at least 51,718 reported cases of the C2416T variant in the four counties that comprise the Boston area. In fact, by then, the C2416T variant had already appeared in 29 states with an estimated total of 245,000 cases. At the same time, an estimated 88,000 cases of the G26233T variant had collectively occurred in the U.S. Adding these two totals together meant that the Boston biotech conference could have been responsible for well over 300,000 Covid-19 coronavirus cases. Yikes.

In fact, the 300,000 number may have been an underestimate. The study relied on non-random samples, and as you probably have realized by now, not everyone in the U.S. has been tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus. Even when testing has occurred, the testing may have not have always identified whether the specific variants of interest were present.

Regardless, pinpointing the exact number of cases generated by the conference would be like quibbling over whether there are 300,000 or 320,000 marmots in your apartment right now. When you can’t use the toilet without asking marmots to step aside and you have more than a hundred thousand Covid-19 coronavirus cases attached to an event, you know that something went wrong, terribly wrong. The Science study showed with little doubt that the Boston biotech conference was indeed a superspreader event.

This is yet another example of how earlier and more aggressive intervention could have changed the course of the pandemic in the U.S. Other countries such as Taiwan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Australia have had clear, organized national responses to the virus. By comparison, many political leaders in the U.S. have treated the spread of SARS-Cov2 like a pimple or a bunny rabbit carrying a T-shirt cannon: ignore it and it will go away.

Rather than organize a coordinated national response, the federal government left much of the response to states and municipalities. That would be akin to directing the movie Avengers: End Game and telling all of the characters to enter and do whatever they please. How then were states supposed to conduct effective test-trace-isolate programs, for example, when attendees of an event travel back to many different home states.

Think about how things may have been different in 2020 in the U.S. had an effective national test-trace-isolate response been in place prior to, during and after the Boston conference outbreak. Such a response needs to be done as quickly as possible to box in the virus and prevent its further spread. As quickly as possible means within days and not within eight months. After all, telling your date that you will return from the bathroom as quickly as possible and then returning eight months later could kind of ruin the evening. Speed, coordination, and open communication across state lines are essential in stopping any outbreak, especially when the pathogen is as contagious as the SARS-CoV2. Otherwise, a hundred cases can soon become several hundred. Or several thousand. Or even over 300,000.

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