The code: How genetic science helped expose a secret coronavirus outbreak in Iowa
Source: Washington Post
The code: How genetic science helped expose a secret coronavirus outbreak
By Sarah Kaplan, Desmond Butler, Juliet Eilperin, Chris Mooney and Luis Velarde
Photos by Ryan Christopher Jones for The Washington Post
Graphics by Joe Fox
Sept. 24, 2020
POSTVILLE, Iowa — It wasn’t until their colleagues began to disappear that workers at Agri Star Meat and Poultry realized there was a killer in their midst.
First came the rumors that rabbis at the kosher plant had been quarantined. Then a man who worked in the poultry department fell ill. They heard whispers about friends of friends who had been stricken with scorching fevers and unbearable chills — characteristic symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
Where was the contagion coming from?
No one would say. Not Agri Star’s wealthy owner, who didn’t shut down production lines after cases were confirmed among workers. Not the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which closed a complaint containing multiple allegations against the plant without an inspection. Not Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), whose administration threatened to prosecute officials who released covid data and did not conduct testing at the plant until seven weeks after the first infections.
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The coronavirus mutates as it moves through its victims. Infectious particles swabbed from a patient’s nose carry small but distinctive differences in its genome that can be used, like a molecular bar code, to track where the virus came from and how it had been transmitted. By reading the virus’s RNA, Kenny could unveil how cases were connected to one another, exposing the secret spread of the disease.
The truth of what happened at Agri Star — and across America — is written in that code.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/genetic-science-coronavirus-outbreak-iowa/
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The article is a long but worthwhile read.
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