A reveler at last year’s Mardi Gras celebration may have been the catalyst for 50,000 cases of the coronavirus, a new study claims.
The Carnival celebration in Louisiana in late February 2020 is known to have made the state one of the first US pandemic hotspots.
But researchers now believe that a single person likely brought the virus to town in the weeks before Fat Tuesday and caused tens of thousands of infections as people gathered together and shared food and drink without masks.
They suspect that Mardi Gras ‘Patient Zero’ infected 800 people within two weeks between February 13 and the conclusion of the Ash Wednesday February 26 festivities.
And those 800 then spread the infection to another 50,000 people in Louisiana and neighboring states.
The team – which consisted of several institutions, including the Scripps Research Institute, Tulane University, and Louisiana State University Health Shreveport – says the outbreak went largely unnoticed due to a lack of testing and mitigation efforts at the time.
A new study found that a single person, likely traveling from Texas, brought COVID-19 to New Orleans for Carnival 2020. Pictured: The risk of the virus spreading in the US in the first week after Mardi Gras
By Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, nearly 800 people were likely infected, leading to 50,000 cases in Louisiana’s first wave. Pictured: Percentage of people who traveled to New Orleans from other states before Mardi Gras 2020
There was little genetic variation in the samples found in New Orleans, creating conditions similar to a cruise ship in which an outbreak originated from a single source. Pictured: Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day in February 2020
Studies later showed that COVID-19 exposure rates were close to 10% in Louisiana’s first wave from March 9 to May 15. Pictured: Society of Saint Anne parade at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, February 2020
At the time, there were no precautions. Nobody thought about this, ” study co-author Mark Zeller, a researcher at Scripps, told DailyMail.com.
‘Nobody wore masks, nobody was socially distant, just partying like the year before.
But the problem was that the virus was already there. The virus was most likely introduced before Mardi Gras, and it’s just getting started and has increased transmission dramatically like a snowball. ‘
For the study, which is not yet subject to peer review and is published on pre-print server medRxiv.org, the team sequenced the genomes of the virus from New Orleans and other locations in Louisiana during the first wave, March 9 through 15 May. .
These were then compared with those from the US and worldwide to determine the emergence of COVID-19 in Bayou state.
There was little genetic variation in the sample found in New Orleans, creating conditions similar to a cruise ship in which an outbreak came from a single source.
Infections were spread to other states, such as Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, but home stays prevented the virus from spreading much further (above)
“I think there are a lot of people in a relatively small space, that’s a fair comparison,” said Zeller.
Obviously, the scale of Mardi Gras is much bigger, but it was a super-dispersing event, basically happening like a cruise ship.
One infected person comes in and the virus starts bouncing around the ship. Think of Louisiana as a big ship, where the virus came in and was just dramatically amplified by Mardi Gras
They also looked at mobility data to gather who was traveling in and out of New Orleans during Carnival.
Between February 14, 2020, the start of the celebration and February 25, Mardi Gras Day, more than one American visited the city.
The first case of COVID-19 in Louisiana was reported on March 9. Unlike early outbreaks in New York and Washington, the researchers determined that Patient Zero was not from Europe or Asia, but from someone traveling inland.
An analysis found that the sick was likely from Texas, which was more than twice as likely as the next most likely state to be the source.
This is because in February 2020, Texas passengers accounted for 13 percent of trips to New Orleans and 35 percent of trips to Shreveport, a city in northwestern Louisiana.
About 800 people were infected by the next day, Ash Wednesday, which spread the virus to others and led to approx 50,000 confirmed cases, mostly in Louisiana during the first wave in the coming months.
“The rapid nature of the early COVID-19 epidemic in New Orleans has likely led to thousands of additional cases, which is supported by seroprevalence studies showing exposure rates of nearly 10 percent by May 15, 2020 in New Orleans,” the authors wrote.
‘Compared to neighboring states that didn’t have the same explosive first waves as Louisiana, the CDC estimated … that the seroprevalence in Louisiana was 35 percent to 134 percent higher than other states in the southern U.S. ”
And while the New Orleans strain led to infections in other parts of Louisiana and other southern states, including Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, home stays have been found to help spread the virus to other states.
This year, New Orleans will close bars from February 12 to February 17 and no establishment will be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. Pictured: A group of revelers on a balcony throwing beads at the crowd down Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras Day in February 2020
‘It was kind of a perfect storm. Very few people in the US were aware of the epidemic that was about to become like thiseveryone was still acting normally, ”said Zeller.
If Mardi Gras had come three weeks earlier, the virus would not have been there or the amplification would have been much lower.
It also works another way so if Mardi Gras was a month later, eeveryone would have known about the virus and it would have been canceled. It was just unfortunate timing of the event. ‘
This year, Mardi Gras and Carnival will look very different.
Bars are closed from February 12 to February 17 and no establishment, such as restaurants, is allowed to sell alcoholic drinks.
Pedestrians and vehicles are not allowed on some of the city’s most popular streets from 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM, and there are no parking zones in place.
Indoor gatherings are limited to a maximum of 10 people and outdoor gatherings to a maximum of 25 guests.
“Vaccinations are on the rise, but only a very small percentage of the population is currently vaccinated,” Zeller said.
‘We have to behave for a few more months. Once we stop wearing face masks, stop socializing, the virus will reappear and spread again.
“People shouldn’t have parties … I know everyone is tired of the whole situation, but this isn’t the right time to party.”