The United States missed out on an early chance to catch imported cases of coronavirus earlier this year, genetics experts say in a new report
Their analysis of the virus imported by the first person known to have carried the infection to the US -- in Washington state back in January -- shows it probably was not the source of the later cases there.And that patient gave the federal government a perfect opportunity to stop further imports, evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona and colleagues said.
The slow mutation rate of the virus makes it hard to track, Worobey said."It mutates so slowly that there are bound to be lots of times that the virus has moved from one country to another but you can't distinguish it because it looks like the identical virus. It does get tricky that way," he said."At same time the slow rate of mutation is what allowed it to do what we did here.
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