In a recent article, De Clarke made a connection between “the rapid spread of a novel coronavirus and the historically unprecedented air-travel culture.” While there may be exceptions, this appears to agree with the first reports of the virus outside China: Airlines spread COVID 19.
Outbreak Of COVID 19
According to official sources cited by the Xinhua News Agency, in late December the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Hubei Province, detected cases of pneumonia of unknown cause. There were 27 cases, with a common link to Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, December 31, 2019.
Unofficial sources, cited by the South China Morning Post, claim the pandemic actually began with a 55-year-old man in Hubei province on Nov. 17, 2019.
Airlines spread COVID 19 to Thailand, Japan & South Korea
The first four cases outside China appear to have travelled by airplane.
Upon hearing of the outbreak, Thailand immediately set up thermal screening for travellers from Wuhan arriving at Survarnabhumi airport. A 61-year-old woman arrived with a tour group on January 8, 2020. Though she had not visited the Huanan Seafood Market, she visited another market daily up until three days before the trip. That was when she started developed a fever with chills, sore throat and headache. She was detected by airport security and hospitalized that same day. A second case came with a tour group that arrived on January 13. She claimed to have not visited any markets, or come into contact with pigs, camels, or other mammals.
A thirty-year-old Japanese resident developed a fever, while visiting Wuhan on January 3, 2020. He visited a clinic after returning home, on January 6, but tested negative for influenza. When his cough, sore throat and fever, he checked into a hospital on January 10 and “was found to have abnormal chest x-ray with infiltrates.” He is Japan’s first confirmed case and, like the tourists to Thailand, did not visit the Huanan Seafood Market.
Three days later a 35-year-old Wuhan resident was detained at the Incheon International Airport, in South Korea. She had a 38.3 °C fever, chills, runny nose, and muscle pain. Tests by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention subsequently confirmed she had COVID 19. She claimed to have not recently visited any markets, come into contact with people know to be infected, or encountered any wild animals.
COVID 19 Reaches The United States
“Patient Zero” for the United States returned to Seattle, after a family visit in Wuhan, on January 15. Four days later he checked into an urgent care lab with a slightly elevated temperature and a cough.
“After learning about his travel, the clinic drew blood and took nasal and throat swabs, and called state and county health officials, who hustled the sample onto an overnight flight to the CDC lab in Atlanta. The patient was told to stay in isolation at home, and health officials checked on him the next morning. The test came back positive that afternoon, Jan. 20, the first confirmed case in the U.S.”
Authorities contacted sixty of his fellow passengers, but were not able to contain the outbreak.
COVID 19 Spreads to Germany, France & Australia
The first case is Germany was a 33-year-old Bavarian man employed by the auto parts supplier Webasto. He contracted the disease after coming into close contact with a Chinese colleague, during a training session in Starnberg, Bavaria. The woman was a Shanghai resident, who had recently been visited by her parents from Wuhan. She started to feel sick on the return flight to China. Her Bavarian colleague “developed bronchitis-like symptoms over the weekend but recovered and felt well enough to go to work on Monday.” He was hospitalized that evening and a week later three more Webasto employees tested positive.
The first French case was a 48-year-old Bordeaux resident who experienced symptoms (fever, headaches and cough) while visiting Wuhan. He flew back to Bordeaux, France on 22 January via Shanghai, Qingdao and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports and was hospitalized the following day. The next two cases were Chinese tourists visiting Paris.
A Chinese national, living in Melbourne, Australia, flew into Tullamarine airport at 9am on Sunday, January 19. He “exhibited no symptoms on the flight” and contacted his GP when the first symptoms manifested. The GP could not confirm he had coronavirus. The family contacted the Monash medical centre, which found he had the virus. Three more cases were reported January 25. Two of them had recently visited Wuhan and the other “had direct contact with a confirmed case from Wuhan.”
COVID 19 Reaches Canada
On January 25, a 50-year-old man with a mild cough landed at Toronto’s Pearson airport. The following day he called 911 and was taken to the hospital. He and his wife are the first confirmed cases in Canada. Health officials contacted “a few” of the other “passengers on China Southern Airlines flight CZ311 from Guangzhou, China, who were in close proximity to the couple,” but told CTV news that the entire plane was not at risk because COVID 19 is a “droplet-spread organism.”
The following day a Vancouver man in his late 40s, who regularly travelled to China for work, informed health authorities that he started experiencing symptoms 24 hours after returning home. He had visited Wuhan.
“This is a gentleman who is well aware of what is going on in China and when he went home he voluntarily self-isolated,” Dr Bonnie Henry told the press.
Tourists Bring The Virus To Finland, Italy & the United Kingdom
A 32-year-old Chinese tourist, from Wuhan, was admitted to Finland’s Lapland Central Hospital on January 28. She developed symptoms while visiting a resort and subsequently tested positive.
On January 29, two infected Chinese tourists visiting Rome were admitted to an isolation unit of the city’s Spallanzani institute, a center specializing in infectious diseases and viruses. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte subsequently halted all air traffic to and from China.
That same day, two Chinese nationals who became ill while staying at the Staycity Aparthotel in York, England, tested positive. One of them is a student at the University of York. A city counselor told the BBC, “The Department for Health and Social Care has confirmed that there have not been any further confirmed cases over the weekend and the risk from coronavirus to individuals living, working and visiting York remains low.”
Spread of the Virus
By the end of the month, Garda World. reported the COVID 19 virus in Australia, Canada, Cambodia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, the US, and Vietnam.
As of 2:00am CEST, 12 April 2020, there have been 1,695,096 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 105,865 deaths, reported to WHO.
23,318 of these cases were in Canada.
Not The First Time
COVID 19 is not the first disease known to have spread abroad through air traffic. According to a recent article in the CONVERSATION:
“Measles outbreaks have begun at airports. One plane carrying a single symptomatic SARS patient saw the disease develop in at least 16 others. Transmission of seasonal influenza during flights is well documented …”
“In the U.S., airlines move more than two-and-a-half million people per day, squeezing them into long metal cylinders where all share the same air, the same restrooms, and take meals shoulder-to-shoulder for hours and hours … It’s hard to conceive a more efficient way to spread infectious disease … “
The author’s suggest, “Airlines could require vaccination for passengers, or at least make them show a medical exemption as to why they cannot be vaccinated.”
Predicting Emergent Diseases
In their research paper, “The role of the airline transportation network in the prediction and predictability of global epidemics” Vittoria Colizza et al found air-transportation is “responsible for the global pattern of emerging diseases … large-scale mathematical models that take fully into account the complexity of the transportation matrix can be used to obtain detailed forecast of emergent disease outbreaks.”
This could prove to be an invaluable tool in knowing where to anticipate future outbreaks, impose travel restrictions and put vaccination policies in place.
This article was originally published on April 12, 2020, and additional material was added the following day.
Top photo credit: Sunrise as we hit 35,000 feet by Ryan Hallock via Flickr (CC BT SA, 2.0 License)