A new study published Tuesday estimates that the Biogen conference in late February may have led to 20,000 COVID-19 cases in the Boston area, according to the Boston Globe. During a conversation with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Tuesday evening, Mayor Marty Walsh said the report “is an eye opener for the rest of the country.”
“At that point, we had six cases of coronavirus here in the city of Boston, and then it just multiplied,” the mayor said. “Within a matter of weeks — less than weeks — we shut everything down here in the city of Boston.”
Walsh emphasized that he and local officials had “no idea” of the conference’s impact at the time, and that he wouldn’t let a similar gathering happen today, especially given the apparent impact of the event. He worried that other places in the country are still not taking the pandemic seriously.
“This story should be read by every local official across America to see exactly what happened with one conference here in Boston,” Walsh said.
The conference, which was attended by nearly 200 company leaders from around the world, was an early “super-spreading” event at the start of the pandemic. It contributed to the brutal coronavirus spike that Massachusetts faced in the spring, which was one of the deadliest in the country at the time.
The particular strain of COVID-19 connected to the conference managed to reach homeless shelters in Boston and kick off outbreaks in other parts of the country.
The study has not been peer reviewed for publication yet, but the researchers are confident that their math adds up. Other researchers not involved in the study told the Globe that the conclusion was sound.
“The national government, the CDC, and the president should have known that this virus was coming to America and how serious it was, and quite honestly should have given us all information that was not provided to us,” Walsh said. “We were kind of running this without really seeing what was in front of us, and we learned as we went forward.”
“It’s still concerning and if we had known and understood that and put some precaution down, we might not be in this situation,” Walsh said.
“Looking back on it now, we learned a lot. Back then we didn’t know how contagious it was,” Boston Mayor @Marty_walsh says about a conference that was held in his city in February that researchers say may have been a Covid-19 superspreading event. https://t.co/hWMHV0utK3 pic.twitter.com/NM0rDL84JL
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) August 25, 2020
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