Biogen conference in Boston likely linked to as many as 300,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide, researcher
Source: Boston Globe
It likely took just one of the 175 people gathered in February at a Biogen conference at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel to ignite a COVID-19 wildfire. Within a week, attendees began falling ill. More than 99 would ultimately test positive. By then, many of them had hopped aboard planes to head home or even attend other conferences. And the spread only exploded from there.
Between 205,000 and 300,000 COVID-19 cases across the nation and around the world can likely be traced back to the two-day Boston conference, according to Jacob Lemieux, the lead author of a new study published Thursday in the journal Science. The study estimates some 71,540 of the cases with a genetic link to the Biogen conference were discovered in Florida, more than 1,000 miles from the waterfront lobby and banquet rooms in Boston that served as the perfect incubator for an eager virus to multiply.
In all, the study estimates the Biogen conference is responsible for roughly 1.6 percent of all cases in the United States since the start of the pandemic.
But the same study found that not all mass gatherings spell nationwide disaster. Early this spring, a chance facility-wide screening uncovered widespread infection at a nursing home in Wilmington. Eighty-two out of 97 residents and 36 staff members at the home would test positive for the virus despite visitor restrictions and universal masking. Two dozen residents would die within two weeks of testing. Yet the devastation of that outbreak was mostly limited to within the walls of the facility. Few outside cases have been linked to the home, the study found.
Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/10/nation/biogen-conference-boston-likely-linked-330000-covid-19-cases-worldwide-researchers-say/
Full title: Biogen conference in Boston likely linked to as many as 300,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide, researchers say
= new reply since forum marked as read
(me and my sisters and the kids went on March 7)
And I remember we were really nervous about it but at the time they had numerous hand sanitizer stations there plus being in the PA Convention Center, the facility's Grand Halls had very high ceilings and air circulation. It usually racks up about 250,000 attendees during its week run. I never heard if any spread happened from that but it might have been early enough in the pandemic to not have much of an impact at that point (if it had happened later it would have and we in fact peaked in the 1st wave here around mid-April).
I do know that aside from that Boston event ending up being a super-spreader, Logan Airport had been one of the airports that Americans were directed to fly into when they started evacuating Europe and you can actually track how the virus spread from Europe to the U.S. in and around the areas where those airports were situated. 
(from back in April during the 1st wave)
I remember back in the spring wondering what the hell was going on in Massachusetts that caused them to spike like that and now it's all coming out.
