A new study claims there may have been cases of Covid19 in Los Angeles as early as last December – months before the first cases in the U.S. were previously known.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 10 million patients at University of California, Los Angeles Health outpatient, emergency department and hospital facilities. They then compared data from the period between Dec. 1, 2019, and Feb. 29, 2020, to data from the same months during the previous five years.
They found that outpatient visits for coughs increased 50% in the months before the pandemic, and was more than 1,000 visits higher than the average number of visits recorded in that same time period during the previous five years.
Researchers also found that in the months before the pandemic there was a significant increase in the number of patients with coughs seen at emergency departments and in the number of patients hospitalized with acute respiratory failure.
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