JACKSON, Wyo. — Editor’s note: Last Thursday Buckrail published a story citing the opinion of a local medical professional. The article explored the hypothesis that COVID-19 may have been in Jackson as early as December/January. It is common and ethical journalistic practice to present multiple perspectives and verify such theories — ideally in the same article. We failed in this instance to provide readers with multiple sides of the discussion.
A theory circulating among some physicians and medical professionals suggests that COVID-19 arrived in the US, and possibly even in Jackson, earlier than the first confirmed case, reported in Washington on January 19.
But the theory is just that — a theory. Until it can be proven (or disproven), it could cause more harm than good.
Genomic research of the virus has traced the first case of COVID in the U.S. to January of this year. Even further back, scientists have traced the very first case to one source: Wuhan, China, between mid-November and early December.
Dr. Josh Petrie, assistant research professor at the University of Michican School of Public Health, told USA Today that it’s possible there were “sporadic” travel-related cases before the first case was confirmed on January 19, but it’s unlikely COVID-19 was in the United States in November or December.
“It certainly wasn’t wide-spread in Jackson Hole in January,” said Dr. Jim Little Jr, MD.
If COVID-19 was present in Jackson as early as December, Little suspects hospitalization and mortality rates would have quickly given it away. Between 15-18% of COVID-19 cases are serious enough to require hospitalization. Roughly two percent of COVID patients die. If “the crud” that inflicted many Jacksonites in December and January was COVID-19, “we would have seen a significant spike in hospitalizations. We did not,” Little said. “We would have seen a significant increase in viral pneumonia if it had been going around, and we did not.”
Since the first reported case of COVID-19 in Teton County less than two months ago, St. John’s Health has admitted 31 patients to the hospital for COVID-19-related issues. Six confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients were in bad enough condition to transfer to regional hospitals in Idaho or Utah. Those numbers likely would have been higher in December and January, because we didn’t know what we were dealing with or how to slow it down. But they were not.
COVID-19 spreads quickly and easily. In “hot spots,” it is estimated that COVID is doubling every two-three days. In Jackson, cases are doubling every five to six days, Little said.
The virus has a contagion rate, “R-naught,” of two-three people. So, every one infected person infects an estimated two-three more people. If just one person in Jackson had COVID-19 on January 1, at the current rate it is spreading, Teton County would have seen more than 30,000 cases by February. To build “herd immunity,” roughly 70% of the population would have to contract the virus. That’s approximately 16,000 people in Teton County.
“If the fatality rate is two percent, we’re talking 350 who would have died from COVID in Jackson Hole,” Little said.
This year also presented an especially brutal flu season, and indeed most of the patients who visited Little’s clinic in December and January with flu-like symptoms tested positive for Influenza A or B. The reason everyone had flu-like symptoms in December and January is very likely because they had the flu.
Third, Little said, COVID-19 has a unique presentation on CT chest scans. CT scans on COVID-19 patients often present ground-glass opacity, according to a study from Radiology. Scans show “hazy spots” on both lungs.
“It looks like a frosted window,” Little said. “These are very remarkable looking CTs.”
And until mid-March, Little had never seen anything like it. Now, he sees them every day.
Antibody testing will, indeed, offer important information one day about the scale of the pandemic. It will tell us who might have had it but didn’t get tested. It will paint a more accurate picture of how many people the virus has touched, Little said. But there are, so far, very few testing options that are FDA-approved. St. John’s CEO Paul Beapuré announced Friday that the hospital would suspend antibody testing for employees until more thorough research has been done and tests have been approved by the FDA.
And according to the World Health Organization, people who recover from COVID-19 may not be fully immune to it and it is too soon to know how long immunity could last.
“We think, and we hope,” that antibodies build immunity, but we do not yet know with certainty, Little said, Plenty of viruses — including the flu — evolve and adapt so that even people with antibodies can get sick.
The assumption of immunity could be fatal. “We don’t want people to think, ‘oh, I had COVID, I can do anything I want now’ — then go out and either spread it again, or get it again,” Little said. “The consequences could be truly life-threatening. Not only could they die, but their parents, coworkers, and people around them could die.”
The point, Little said, is that there is still a lot to learn about the novel coronavirus, but “we need to focus on what’s happening now.”
“We have a lot of work to do if we’re going to beat this thing.” Right now, that work looks like washing hands religiously, wearing masks in public, and staying home.
