China SXT Pharmaceuticals Inc (SXTC)

[mick]

Trevor Bedford, an associate professor who announced the preliminary findings on the virus in Washington state, said on Twitter late Saturday that genetic similarities between the state's first case on Jan. 20 and a case announced Friday indicated the newer case may have descended from the earlier one. The Jan. 20 case was the first known case in the U.S.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-03-01/officials-seek-to-calm-public-as-new-us-virus-cases-reported


“I believe we're facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China,” he said on Twitter.

Bedford did not immediately reply to an e-mail requesting an interview Sunday.

Scientists not affiliated with the research said the results did not necessarily surprise them and pointed out that for many people — especially younger, healthier ones — the symptoms are not much worse than a flu or bad cold.

“We think that this has a pretty high rate of mild symptoms and can be asymptomatic. The symptoms are pretty non-specific and testing criteria has been pretty strict, so those combinations of factors means that it easily could have been circulating for a bit without us knowing,” said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Adam Lauring of University of Michigan called the findings “high quality work” from scientists who've done similar work with the flu virus for years.

“They show their data and they show their work,” Lauring said. “It’s more than a series of tweets" because the researchers back up what they found with data that they've shared online. "If there’s something wrong, someone will find it.”