According to a new study, one of the partygoers of last year’s Mardi Gras celebration could have been the catalyst for 50,000 cases of coronavirus.
It is well known that the celebration of the 2020 Carnival in Louisiana in late February made the state one of the first pandemic hotspots in the US.
But investigators believe a single person probably brought the virus to the city in the weeks leading up to Shrove Tuesday and generated tens of thousands of infections due to crowded people who shared food and drinks without masks.
They suspect Mardi Gras’ “Zero Patient” infected 800 people in the two weeks between Feb. 13 and the end of the festivities on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26.
And those 800 continued to spread the infection to another 50,000 people in Louisiana and neighboring states.
The team, made up of several institutions, including the Scripps Research Institute, Tulane University and Louisiana State Health University, Shreveport, says the outbreak was not detected in large part due to lack of testing and mitigation efforts at that time.
A new study determined that a single person, probably traveling from Texas, brought COVID-19 to New Orleans for Carnival 2020. Pictured: The risk of the virus spreading to the U.S. the first week after of Mardi Gras
By Tuesday and Ash Tuesday, nearly 800 people were infected and caused 50,000 cases in the first wave of Louisiana. Pictured: Percentage of people who traveled from other states to New Orleans before Tuesday 2020
There was little genetic variety in the samples found in New Orleans, which created conditions similar to those of a cruise in which an outbreak comes from a single source. Pictured: Bourbon Street, New Orleans, on Tuesday, February 2020
Studies later showed that COVID-19 exposure rates were close to 10% in the first wave of Louisiana from March 9 to May 15. Pictured: Society of Saint Anne parade on Tuesday in New Orleans, February 2020
“There were no precautions then. No one was thinking about it, “study co-author Mark Zeller, a Scripps researcher, told DailyMail.com.
“No one wore masks, no one socially distanced themselves, they just partyed like the year before.
But the problem was that the virus was already there. The virus was most likely introduced before Mardi Gras and started and drastically increased transmission like a snowball.
For the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed and published on the medRxiv.org prepress server, the team sequenced the genomes of the New Orleans virus and other Louisiana locations during the first wave, from March 9 to May 15. .
They were then compared with U.S. and worldwide genomes to identify the appearance of COVID-19 in the state of Bayou.
There was little genetic variety in the sample found in New Orleans, which created conditions similar to those of a cruise in which an outbreak comes from a single source.
Infections spread to other states, such as Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, but house arrest orders prevented the virus from spreading much higher (above).
“I think there are a lot of people in a relatively small space, it’s a fair comparison,” Zeller said.
‘Viouslybviament, the scale of the Mardi Gras is much larger, but it was a very widespread event, which basically happens like a cruise.
“He has an infected person coming in and the virus starts jumping on the ship. Think of Louisiana as a big ship, where the virus came in and ended up being dramatically amplified by Mardi Gras.
They also examined mobility data to collect who traveled in and out of New Orleans during Carnival.
Between February 14, 2020, the start of the celebration, and Tuesday, February 25, more than one American visited the city.
The first case of COVID-19 in Louisiana was reported on March 9. Unlike the first outbreaks in New York and Washington, the researchers determined that Patient Zero was not from Europe or Asia, but from someone traveling home.
One analysis determined that the sick person probably came from Texas, which was more than twice as likely as the next state most likely to be the source.
This is because during February 2020, Texas passengers accounted for 13% of trips to New Orleans and 35% of trips to Shreveport, a city in northwest Louisiana.
About 800 people were infected the next day, Ash Wednesday, which spread the virus to others and caused about 50,000 confirmed cases, mostly in Louisiana during the first wave of the coming months.
“The rapid nature of the first COVID-19 epidemic in New Orleans likely led to thousands of additional cases, which is supported by seroprevalence studies showing exposure rates close to ten percent on May 15, 2020 in New Orleans, “the authors wrote.
‘Compared to neighboring states that did not experience the same first explosive waves as Louisiana, the CDC … estimated that seroprevalence in Louisiana was 35% to 134% higher than in other southern states. USA.
And while tensions in New Orleans caused infections in other parts of Louisiana and other southern states, including Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, home stay orders appeared to help spread the virus to other states.
This year, New Orleans closes bars Feb. 12-17 and no establishment will be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. In the photo: a group of partygoers on the balcony throw pearls at the people below, on Bourbon Street, on Tuesday, February 2020
It was kind of a perfect storm. Very few people in the US were aware of the epidemic about to become everyone was still behaving normally, “Zeller said.
“If Mardi Gras had come three weeks earlier, the virus would not have been there or the amplification would have been much lower.
‘It also works on another out, so if Mardi Gras was a month later, every much someone would have been aware of the virus and it would have been canceled, it was an unfortunate moment of the event.
This year, Carnival and Carnival will look very different.
Bars will be closed from 12 to 17 February and no establishments, such as restaurants, will be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages.
Pedestrians and vehicles will not be allowed on some of the city’s most popular streets from 7pm to 3am and there will be no parking areas either.
Indoor meetings will be limited to a maximum of 10 people and outdoor meetings to a maximum of 25 guests.
“Vaccinations are on the rise, but only a very small percentage of the population is vaccinated,” Zeller said.
“We should still be behaving for a couple of more months. As soon as we stop wearing face masks, we stop social distancing, the virus will reappear and spread again.
“People shouldn’t be partying … I know everyone is fed up with the whole situation, but it’s not the right time to start partying.”