"Hospital police may have to bar Biogen employees from entering the area" 👀

[Dennis Donovan]

Last edited Tue Mar 10, 2020, 11:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

David Gura ✔@davidgura

In the days after the conference, a sick executive was told "a coronavirus test was not warranted."

Others "had gone to MGH or to their doctors to request coronavirus testing, only to be rebuffed because they did not meet the federal government criteria."

David Gura ✔@davidgura

This is a must-read tick-tock by seven — count 'em, seven! — @BostonGlobe reporters, about how #COVID19 spread among 175 executives at a leadership conference last week: https://bit.ly/2xl3G9Q .

Seventy #coronavirus cases in Massachusetts are linked to the event.

9:50 PM - Mar 10, 2020

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/11/nation/how-biogen-leadership-conference-boston-spread-coronavirus/

How the Biogen leadership conference in Boston spread the coronavirus

Updated March 10, 2020,

This story was reported by Andy Rosen, Hanna Krueger, Kay Lazar, Jonathan Saltzman, Liz Kowalczyk, and Mark Arsenault of the Globe staff. It was written by Arsenault.

It opened with breakfast, at 7 a.m., in the Harbor View Ballroom of the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel, where a wide bank of windows offers a sublime view across the inner harbor, steel gray on a cloudy morning, to Logan Airport in the distance.

About 175 executives were expected at the Biogen leadership conference on Feb. 26. Employees from Biogen locations around the United States and the world reunited with colleagues they don’t often get to see.

They greeted each other enthusiastically, with handshakes and hugs, and then caught up over breakfast, picking from plates of pastries and the self-serve hot food bar. They were there for two days of discussions and presentations about the future of the Cambridge-based, multinational biotech firm, which develops therapies for neurological diseases. It was the kind of under-the-radar gathering that happens in this region just about every week.

Within days, though, the Biogen conference would be infamous, identified as an epicenter of the Massachusetts outbreak of Covid-19, with 70 of 92 coronavirus infections in the state linked to the conference as of Tuesday night, including employees and those who came into contact with them. That doesn’t include a cascade of individual cases in Tennessee, North Carolina, Indiana, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Norway, and suspected cases in Germany, Austria, and Argentina.

</snip>

Whoa!

[babylonsister]

1. Maddow/Williams just reported on this.

That's why the parade was cancelled, no doubt.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. This is bordering on the surreal

Never, in my most frightening nightmares, did I imagine Trump would be SO bad that he'd completely fuck up a pandemic response to the point hospitals would be turning away sick patients.

I mean, I *knew* he was going to suck, but not suck THIS bad!!

[UpInArms]

3. Boston Globe link

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/11/nation/how-biogen-leadership-conference-boston-spread-coronavirus/?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

About 175 executives were expected at the Biogen leadership conference on Feb. 26. Employees from Biogen locations around the United States and the world reunited with colleagues they don’t often get to see.

They greeted each other enthusiastically, with handshakes and hugs, and then caught up over breakfast, picking from plates of pastries and the self-serve hot food bar. They were there for two days of discussions and presentations about the future of the Cambridge-based, multinational biotech firm, which develops therapies for neurological diseases. It was the kind of under-the-radar gathering that happens in this region just about every week.

Within days, though, the Biogen conference would be infamous, identified as an epicenter of the Massachusetts outbreak of Covid-19, with 70 of 92 coronavirus infections in the state linked to the conference as of Tuesday night, including employees and those who came into contact with them. That doesn’t include a cascade of individual cases in Tennessee, North Carolina, Indiana, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Norway, and suspected cases in Germany, Austria, and Argentina.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. They broke it out of the paywall!

I wanted to post it earlier but it was paywalled. Adding it to the OP. Thanks!

[milestogo]

4. And where exactly do they expect these people to go?

What is the purpose of an emergency room?

[GopherGal]

6. Catch 22: Can't get tested until someone else's test is positive, but they can't get tested either

The Biogen meeting attendees didn't meet the criteria to be tested because they hadn't had contact with a known case.
When the European attendees got home and tested positive March 4, there began to be some testing of the Massachusetts folks.

[MerryBlooms]

7. Welp, that's a pants crapper.

Wondering if they've contacted Elizabeth Warren for help?

[smirkymonkey]

8. Damn. I have an appointment at MGH on Friday.

My doctor rescheduled from last Friday because she was sick. I am wondering if I should just postpone this indefinitely. It's not urgent, just a follow-up. I'm not so sure I want to be anywhere close to there.