According to several genomic studies, the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus began circulating in New York in mid-February. While the suspicions concerning the first cases in this country related to a origin from Asia, these would actually come from Europe.
In an article published by the New York Times on April 8, 2020, particular mention is made of research conducted by New York University. According to geneticist Adriana Heguy, her team analyzed 75 samples taken from the nasal cavities of patients cared for at three New York hospitals. As everyone knows, the economic capital of the United States is the epicenter of the epidemic with almost half of the deaths in the country.
According to the results, the majority of cases come from Europe and not from Asia . This could be explained by the fact that the United States reduced its air trade with China quite early. As of January 31, the government prohibited entry into the territory of foreigners who had transited through China in the previous two weeks. However, President Donald Trump waited until mid-March to ban European travelers from entering the United States.
While the first Covid-19 genome was sequenced at the end of January, no less than 3,000 similar operations have taken place since then. However, some genomes are identical to the original source and others carry distinctive mutations . You should know that viruses constantly mutate by replicating. However, each cycle causes small errors, which makes it possible to reconstruct the itinerary of a virus. Thanks to their analyses, the leaders of the study therefore estimated with a high probability that the Covid-19 arrived from the United Kingdom to contaminate the United States.
The researchers also believe that a testing program put in place from the start would have detected the epidemic much earlier. This would obviously have avoided the current outbreak of cases in the United States and the incredible forecasts unveiled recently. Currently, the balance sheet of this country reports more than 430,000 cases for almost 15,000 deaths. Remember, however, that at the White House, we are talking about 100,000 to 200,000 deaths after the end of the epidemic!
Finally, the researchers' next step is to scale up the sequencing program and manage to analyze around 200 samples per week . The goal? Build a library of thousands of genomes. This kind of work is also underway in other countries and the resulting data should be shared.
