The coronavirus mutatesย as it moves through its victims. Infectious particles swabbed from a patientโs 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 virusโs RNA, [geneticist Paraic] Kenny could unveil how cases were connected to one another, exposing the secret spread of the disease.
The truth of what happened at [meatpacking plant] Agri Star โ and across America โ is written in that code.
Looking at the Postville cluster โ more than two dozen yellow dots linked by three distinctive mutations โ it was clear to him what happened. The sub-strain started with a single case. But in the crowded conditions of the meat processing plant, it exploded.
โA single viral introduction led to unrestrained spread within the facility,โ Kenny wrote inย a study on the website MedRxiv, where scientists post โpreprintโ research… His research, he said, showed โthe collateral damage resulting from widespread dissemination of this disease from a meat-packing epicenter across a large midwestern region.โ
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Multiple lines of evidence put Agri Star at the epicenter of this outbreak, Kenny said. The fact that patients from across Postvilleโs diverse communities were infected with the same sub-strain โ despite living, shopping and worshiping in different places โ suggests they contracted the illness in the one setting they shared: the plant.
