Biogen, superspreader

[kadee79]

How quickly things can get out of hand....

On the first Monday in March, Michel Vounatsos, chief executive of the drug company Biogen, appeared in good spirits. The company’s new Alzheimer’s drug was showing promise after years of setbacks. Revenues had never been higher.

Onstage at an elite health care conference in Boston, Mr. Vounatsos touted the drug’s “remarkable journey.” Asked if the coronavirus that was ravaging China would disrupt supply chains and upend the company’s big plans, Mr. Vounatsos said no.

“So far, so good,” he said.

But even as he spoke, the virus was already silently spreading among Biogen’s senior executives, who did not know they had been infected days earlier at the company’s annual leadership meeting.



Biogen employees, most feeling healthy, boarded planes full of passengers. They drove home to their families. And they carried the virus to at least six states, the District of Columbia and three countries, outstripping the ability of local public health officials to trace the spread.



The Biogen meeting was one of the earliest examples in the U.S. of what epidemiologists call “superspreading events” of Covid-19, where a small gathering of people leads to a huge number of infections. Unlike the most infamous clusters of cases stemming from a nursing home outside Seattle or a 40th birthday party in Connecticut, the Biogen cluster happened at a meeting of top health care professionals whose job it was to fight disease, not spread it.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-biogen-became-a-coronavirus-superspreader/ar-BB12wGDB?li=BBnb7Kz

[teen persuasion]

All those executives jetting back and forth from Europe to the U.S., from state to state within the U.S., and networking/partying with one another.

That's how it spread so quickly in the big cities.


The first half dozen or so confirmed cases in my area were all tracked to travel (to NYC, Italy, and out of state).

[deminmaine]

Yes, ironically it is the affluent who are most responsible for this spread.  

[teen persuasion]

Apr 14, 2020 10:43:51 GMT -5 deminmaine said:

Yes, ironically it is the affluent who are most responsible for this spread.  

I'd say the irony here is that they were medical professionals who are most responsible for this spread.