The researchers examined six years of electronic health records, representing nearly 10 million patients, at the UCLA health system from July 2014 through February. Health agencies have surveillance systems in place to detect the early signals of disease outbreaks, such as a rise in patients with fever checking into hospitals. That approach revealed an uptick in patients that began the week of Dec. 22 and remained elevated for 10 weeks. ADAlthough the virus may have infected a small number of people sooner than previously reported, Spellberg said he doubted that “meaningful transmission” occurred in December or January. Using data from emergency departments that reported patients with flu-like illnesses, Spellberg and his colleagues observed two peaks in patients in December and February, as they reported in JAMA this spring.

Source: Washington Post September 10, 2020 14:47 UTC