Saturday, April 11, 2020

Coronavirus: The US has a collective action problem that’s larger than Covid-19 - Vox

Coronavirus: The US has a collective action problem that's larger than Covid-19 - Vox

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21216216/coronavirus-social-distancing-texas-unacast-climate-change

The US has a collective action problem that's larger than the coronavirus crisis

Data show one of the strongest predictors of social distancing behavior is attitudes toward climate change.

Patrick SharkeyApr 10, 2020, 4:40pm EDT

An aerial view shows vacant residential neighborhood streets as coronavirus infections accelerate on April 8 in Pasadena, California.

As nations like China and Singapore with more centralized governments and public health systems have been relatively effective in enforcing social distancing and containing coronavirus, the response in the United States has been fragmented and incoherent. California was the first state to issue a stay-at-home order on March 19, but as of April 8 five states still had no order and three others had orders for only some parts of the state.

Even as the last holdouts gradually give in and order their residents to shelter in place, data tracking mobile phone locations suggests that many Americans have not fundamentally altered their behavior. Unacast, a company specializing in the analysis of "human mobility data," has put together a Social Distancing Scoreboard that measures average distance traveled as well as "nonessential visits" to venues like spas, cinemas, jewelers, and department and clothing stores.

The data is imperfect, but there is a strong signal amid the noise. As of April 7, for instance, the data showed that average mobility in the nation as a whole had fallen by more than 40 percent since February. But that figure obscures tremendous variation in behavior change across US states, and across counties within the same states.

Containing the spread of the coronavirus requires collective, unified action, but data on social distancing makes it clear this isn't happening everywhere. The question is why. In what kinds of places are residents deciding to move about as if they are immune to the virus that has paralyzed much of the world? What do they look like, and why are they ignoring the calls for social distancing?

To get some hints, I put together several sources of data from US counties focusing on economic and demographic characteristics, voting patterns, civic engagement and social capital, and even attitudes toward climate change from Yale's Climate Change in the American Mind survey.

Analyzing the data reveals that social distancing behavior is related to education; to race and ethnicity; to political identity and social capital; and to the impact that this virus has already had on the residents of particular counties. And the various sources of data also reveal a larger pattern.

One of the strongest and most robust predictors of social distancing behavior is found in attitudes toward another major challenge facing the United States: climate change. Places where residents are less likely to agree that global warming is happening, that humans are the cause, and that we have an obligation to do something about it are the places where residents haven't changed their behavior in response to coronavirus. The analysis makes clear that we have a collective action problem much larger than Covid-19.

The uneven geography of social distancing

Almost 2 million people live in Bexar County, Texas, which contains the city of San Antonio and parts of several smaller towns and cities surrounding it. As of April 9, the county had over 500 cases of coronavirus and 18 deaths.

Mobile phone data from Unacast suggests the residents of Bexar County are taking the virus seriously. Travel has dropped by more than 55 percent since February, and nonessential visits have fallen by over 70 percent. Bexar is part of a string of counties in the south of Texas, running northward from San Antonio to Austin, where behavior has changed drastically since the emergence of Covid-19.

In the more sparsely populated counties just south of Bexar, however, residents haven't scaled back their daily travel nearly as much. Atascosa, Wilson, and Gonzalez counties, all of which have confirmed cases of coronavirus, were each given a D in the Social Distancing Scoreboard. Further east, Harris County, the home of Houston, received a B mainly due to a sharp drop in nonessential visits. In neighboring Liberty County, where 14 cases have been confirmed, the decline in nonessential visits is not nearly as steep, and the county earned a D.

Although the letter grades provide a simple summary that we all understand, it is important to put the numbers in the scoreboard into some context. Social distancing is simply impossible for some segments of the population who need to move around for work or for essential food and supplies, and daily travel looks very different in rural areas where residents are spread out. Yet similar counties exhibit different patterns of behavior, suggesting that some degree of choice, guided by local norms, is influencing behavioral change. At a moment when a unified effort is crucial to stopping the spread of this new virus, the uneven geography of social distancing may be the biggest threat to our success in containing Covid-19.

What kinds of places are more likely to be social distancing?

Data from the south of Texas shows a sharp divide between urban and rural counties, but the story of social distancing is not a simple story of population density. In fact, the lowest social distancing grades are found in non-metro areas adjacent to larger cities, rather than in rural, sparsely populated counties.

Other measures like the age profile of the county, the total size of the population, the racial and ethnic composition, and even the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 do not have a clear relationship with social distancing behavior. Different characteristics turn out to be much better predictors; the strongest predictors are shown in the chart above.

Counties that have experienced at least one death from Covid-19 are more likely to comply with social distancing guidelines, as one might expect. Grades are also higher in counties where residents have higher income, more education, and lower rates of unemployment (measured prior to the crisis).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, politics and civic engagement bear a strong relationship to social distancing behavior. Higher levels of social capital — a combination of voter turnout in federal elections, response rates in the 2010 census, the number of associations and the number of nonprofits per capita — is associated with more social distancing. By contrast, counties with the greatest share of votes for Trump in the 2016 election were least likely to practice social distancing. And the greater the share of residents who disagreed with the statement that global warming is happening, the worse the county's grade received in the Social Distancing Scoreboard.

All of these characteristics of counties are intertwined in complex ways, which means the patterns in the chart are meaningful only in a superficial way. And some of the variation across counties might simply be driven by differences in behavior in blue and red states, where governors have taken more or less aggressive approaches to encouraging social distancing. To push further, it is useful to consider all of these county factors together, and to analyze variation in social distancing among counties within the same states.

To do so, I carried out a regression analysis with all of the county-level measures and including fixed effects for states — this approach means that the analysis focuses only on variation among counties within the same states. (I should note that the results are virtually identical if I get rid of the state fixed effects and make comparisons among all counties across the nation.)

When all variables are included in the same model, I find counties that have experienced a death from Covid-19 exhibit higher levels of social distancing, but counties with more cases exhibit lower levels. Counties with larger populations, with more educated residents, and with higher percentages of white and Hispanic residents tend to receive higher grades on social distancing, while the age structure, the median income, and the unemployment rate are no longer associated with social distancing behavior.

Social distancing grades rise with the level of social capital in a county, and grades fall with the percentage of the county voters who cast a ballot for Trump in 2016. Last, even after adjusting for all these other characteristics, counties within the same state where a greater share of residents do not agree that global warming is happening are substantially less likely to change their behavior in response to Covid-19.

In fact, attitudes toward climate change are one of the strongest and most robust predictors of social distancing behavior. In the full model I find that an increase of 10 percentage points in the share of residents who do not agree that global warming is happening is associated with a 1 point drop in the county's social distancing grade — which essentially means shifting from, say, a C to a B- in social distancing behavior.

The same results apply no matter how I run the analysis, and they apply to just about every question asked in the Climate Change in the American Mind survey. In the places where residents don't think global warming is real, where they don't believe humans are responsible, where they don't think citizens have a responsibility to act, residents are also failing to change their behavior during the coronavirus crisis.

The problem of collective action in the United States

America's spatial divisions are being exposed and amplified during this period of crisis. Because Covid-19 isn't bound by the administrative boundaries that divide one county from another, efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus in any given county can be undermined by residents one county over who are ignoring guidelines for social distancing. Divergence in social distancing behavior represents perhaps the most serious risk to our national efforts to overcome this crisis.

But the problem isn't limited to the coronavirus. When we do get past this crisis, we will face a set of new challenges, along with others that have been around for decades but are becoming more urgent. How does our economy recover from Covid-19? How do we deal with the long-term rise of economic inequality, and the persistence of racial inequality and injustice? What do we do about the opioid epidemic? And how do we respond to climate change?

All these challenges require a collective, unified solution, and difficult decisions to protect the entire society and future generations. Yet we are a nation that has become increasingly divided along spatial lines. For decades, Americans have been encouraged to respond to major challenges like urban decline, social unrest, and environmental degradation by isolating themselves in areas that are increasingly segregated by class and by politics.

Covid-19 is exposing the limits of that response, but it also raises a question that is crucial to answer if the United States is going to prosper in the coming decades: In a divided nation, how do we come together — figuratively, for the time being — to solve collective challenges?

Patrick Sharkey is professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @patrick_sharkey.

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~A.

Apple, Google Bring Covid-19 Contact-Tracing to 3 Billion People - Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-10/apple-google-bring-covid-19-contact-tracing-to-3-billion-people?sref=StzN0HjU&utm_content=business&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business

Apple, Google Bring Covid-19 Contact-Tracing to 3 Billion People

Mark GurmanApril 10, 2020, 1:00 PM EDT

Tech giants in rare partnership via iPhone, Android devices

Bloomberg's daily technology newsletter is chronicling the impact of Covid-19 on the global tech industry. Sign up here.

Apple Inc. and Google unveiled a rare partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert users if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19. People must opt in to the system, but it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world's population.

The technology, known as contact-tracing, is designed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus by telling users they should quarantine or isolate themselves after contact with an infected individual.

The Silicon Valley rivals said on Friday that they are building the technology into their iOS and Android operating systems in two steps. In mid-May, the companies will add the ability for iPhones and Android phones to wirelessly exchange anonymous information via apps run by public health authorities. The companies will also release frameworks for public health apps to manage the functionality.

This means that if a user tests positive for Covid-19, and adds that data to their public health app, users who they came into close proximity with over the previous several days will be notified of their contact. This period could be 14 days, but health agencies can set the time range.

The second step takes longer. In the coming months, both companies will add the technology directly into their operating systems so this contact-tracing software works without having to download an app. Users must opt in, but this approach means many more people can be included. Apple's iOS and Google's Android have about 3 billion users between them, over a third of the world's population.

The pandemic has killed more than 100,000 and infected 1.63 million people. Governments have ordered millions to stay home, sending the global economy into a vicious tailspin. Pressure is building to relax these measures and get the world back to work. Contact-tracing is a key part of this because it can help authorities contain a potential resurgence of the virus as people resume regular activities.

2020-coronavirus-cases-world-map-cases-since-inline

Still, this technology is controversial because it involves sharing sensitive health information from billions of people via mobile devices that are constantly broadcasting their location. Some politicians and regulators have been warning that citizens' privacy should be protected.

"We caution that actions taken to contain spreading of coronavirus must also preserve the right to privacy held by each and every American," members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, wrote in a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump. "Google's colossal stores of data on daily movements of Americans, coupled with the might of local, state, and federal governments is an alarming prospect."

Apple and Google stressed on Friday that their system preserves users' privacy. Consent is required and location data is not collected. The technology also won't notify users who they came into contact with, or where that happened. The companies said they can't see this data either, and noted that the whole system can be shut down when needed.

Aside from privacy and trust concerns, challenges include the availability of widespread and free testing to complement the app, as well as access to mobile phones and other wireless devices, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We must be realistic that such contact tracing methods are likely to exclude many vulnerable members of society who lack access to technology and are already being disproportionately impacted by the pandemic," Jennifer Granick, ACLU's surveillance and cybersecurity counsel, said in a statement.

For Apple and Google, such a close partnership between these longtime rivals is extremely rare. The technology giants have competed in smartphone operating systems, app stores, media services, and voice-recognition technology for years -- while trading barbs over the privacy of each others' platforms. However, both companies have been under pressure to use their prodigious resources to help fight the pandemic.

"All of us at Apple and Google believe there has never been a more important moment to work together to solve one of the world's most pressing problems," the companies said in a joint statement.

Their system uses Bluetooth, a standard way for most mobile devices to communicate with each other. Apple and Google shared a theoretical example to explain how it works.

Two people meet to chat for a few minutes, and in the background via Bluetooth their smartphones exchange anonymous identifiers to register that they have been in contact. These digital keys change every 15 minutes or so and remain on these people's devices to preserve privacy.

Several days later, one of these individuals is diagnosed with Covid-19. The person enters the results into a health-agency app on their phone. The system then asks for this user's consent. If granted, the person's smartphone sends a record of the other mobile devices that have been in close proximity during the previous days. This information is temporarily stored in a remote computer server for about 14 days.

Meanwhile, the other person's phone checks the server periodically to see if any identifier keys have been associated with a positive Covid-19 diagnosis. The phone downloads all positive keys and matches it anonymously to the key belonging to the individual from the original meeting days earlier. This sends a notification to the other person's phone with information from health agencies about how to quarantine or self-isolate.

The contact-tracing technology isn't the first step against Covid-19 for either company. Google launched an information website in March, while Apple has released its own screening tools for iPhone users. Apple has also donated over 20 million masks to health-care workers and has designed face shields, and Verily, a unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc., is running virus-testing sites in some parts of California.

Other organizations are also working on contact-tracing. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this week announced plans for a similar system. Some countries and third-party developers have also tried implementing contact-tracing on phones, but they have faced privacy and connectivity issues that the new system is designed to avoid.

— With assistance by Billy House

(Updates with comment from ACLU in 11th paragraph.)

~A.

As oil crashes, ‘America’s untapped energy giant’ could rise | Grist

As oil crashes, 'America's untapped energy giant' could rise | Grist

https://grist.org/energy/as-oil-crashes-americas-untapped-energy-giant-could-rise/?utm_content=buffer9481a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

As oil crashes, 'America's untapped energy giant' could rise

Emily Pontecorvoon Apr 10, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has mostly yielded bad news for renewable energy. Disruptions to supply chains and slowdowns in permitting and construction have delayed solar and wind projects, endangering their eligibility for the soon-to-expire investment tax credits they rely on. There's another form of renewable energy, however, that might see a benefit from the recent global economic upheaval and emerge in a better position to help the United States decarbonize its electricity system: geothermal.

Geothermal energy comes from heat beneath the earth's surface that we can tap into to generate electricity and to heat and cool our buildings. In a report released last year detailing the growth potential of geothermal energy, the Department of Energy called it "America's untapped energy giant."

Unlike wind and the sun, subsurface heat is available 24/7, perpetually replenished by the radioactive decay of minerals deeper down. But compared to wind and solar farms, geothermal power plants are expensive to build. The cost can range from $2,000 to $5,000 per installed kilowatt, and even the least expensive geothermal plant in the U.S. costs more than double that of a utility-scale solar farm. Engineers have to drill thousands of feet into the ground to reach reservoirs of water and rock hotter than 300 degrees F in order for the plants to be economical. Plants generate electricity by pumping steam or hot water up from those reservoirs to spin a turbine which powers a generator.

Experts told Grist that drilling can account for anywhere between 25 to 70 percent of the cost of a project, depending on where it is, the method of drilling, and the equipment required. But now, the companies that supply the machinery and services for drilling are starting to slash rates.

That's because they are the same suppliers the oil industry uses, but oil companies are idling drilling rigs and cutting contracts left and right. They're getting pummeled by the largest oil price crash in decades, the result of plunging demand due to the pandemic and a glut in supply because of a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. On Tuesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration revised its short-term outlook for crude oil production, predicting a steep decline through 2021. All of the suppliers who are normally digging for oil are now eager for new business.

Tim Latimer, a former drilling engineer for the oil and gas industry and now the cofounder and CEO of Fervo Energy, a geothermal energy company (and a 2020 Grist 50 Fixer) said suppliers have already been willing to knock 10 percent off quotes they gave him a few weeks ago. In a recent Twitter thread, Latimer predicted that drilling costs could drop by as much as 20 to 40 percent. On top of that, interest rates are down, and recovery bills with new funding for clean energy are potentially around the corner.

Lowering the up-front cost of building a geothermal power plant would allow plant operators to bring down electricity prices, which could attract new interest in geothermal from utilities. "If you can bring that price down even a little bit," Latimer said, utility buyers "get a lot more excited about it because they want to have something in their portfolio that can produce electricity at night."

In California, which has set a target of 100 percent clean electricity by 2045, energy providers are starting to recognize the benefits of geothermal's round-the-clock power and have agreed to purchase power from two new plants being built in the state. But in states where there isn't as much pressure to decarbonize, it's a tough sell: The cost of electrons from a geothermal plant can be more than three times as high as those from solar and wind.

Part of the problem, according to Susan Petty, the chief technology officer, president, and co-founder of geothermal company AltaRock Energy, is that utilities don't place extra value on geothermal's ability to generate electricity all the time. She said bringing drilling costs down will help, but it would help even more if there were parity in the tax incentives for renewables: This year, geothermal electricity projects were eligible for a 10 percent investment tax credit, compared to a 26 percent credit for solar and wind.

Geothermal faces other hurdles, like a lengthy permitting process that stretches out project timelines. It can be challenging to find investors during the early, risky stages of a project, before the viability of developing a given site has been proven. Geothermal also suffers from a PR problem — people just aren't as familiar with it as they are with wind and solar. The technology has been around in the U.S. since the 1960s, but for these reasons and others, geothermal still only makes up 0.4 percent of the U.S. electricity mix.

Existing and planned U.S. geothermal installed capacity (MWe) by state | U.S. Department of Energy

A boost for the industry could come from an unlikely place: the oil and gas industry. Kate Young, the geothermal program manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said that over the past year she's noticed an uptick in interest from the oil and gas industry in geothermal. "That, I think, is very exciting," Young said. "Oil and gas has the funding and capability and knowhow to quickly advance technology and deployment of geothermal."

As international climate policy puts more pressure on fossil fuel companies to look for new business models, geothermal offers a way to repurpose what they know best: drilling, extraction, and infrastructure. "Geothermal is their way out," said Sanjeev Kumar, head of policy at the European Geothermal Energy Council.

Geothermal is an opportunity not just for oil and gas companies, but also for the oil and gas workers losing their jobs because of the price crash, or who may soon lose them due to climate policy. Many of the jobs and skill sets are transferable, from exploration geologists to drillers to power plant operators.

"I do think geothermal can be a huge part of a just transition for the oil and gas workforce into the clean energy world," said Latimer. "And a downturn like this is exactly the time to make that practical and a reality."

~A.

Event 201 Pandemic Exercise: Highlights Reel

Watch the video...a Practice Run for the new world larder.

This is..... sick. I mean WHAT has it (the multiple conferences of our world leaders in this area or not) delivered?
But apparently it happens Regularly.
And the Result(s)?????..........

https://youtu.be/AoLw-Q8X174

Bill Gates interview: How the world will change by 2030

https://youtu.be/8RETFyDKcw0

~A.

Screenshot 2020-02-16 at 7.19.27 AM

from January?

Coronavirus: There are THREE types and virus may be mutating | Daily Mail Online

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8204255/There-THREE-separate-types-coronavirus.html

Coronavirus: There are THREE types and virus may be mutating

Three types of the deadly coronavirus are spreading around the world - and the US is being rocked by the original strain from China.

Cambridge University researchers mapped the genetic history of the infection from December to March and found three distinct, but closely related, variants.

Analysis of the strains showed type A - the original virus that jumped to humans from bats via pangolins - was not China's most common. Instead, the pandemic's ground-zero was mainly hit by type B, which was in circulation as far back as Christmas Eve.

Results showed type A was the most prevalent in Australia and the US, which has recorded more than 400,000 COVID-19 cases. Two-thirds of American samples were type A - but infected patients mostly came from the West Coast, and not New York.

Dr Peter Forster and team found the UK was mostly being bombarded with type B cases, with three quarters of samples testing as that strain. Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands were also dominated by type B.

Another distinct variation, type C, descended from type B and spread to Europe via Singapore.

Scientists believe the virus - officially called SARS-CoV-2 - is constantly mutating to overcome immune system resistance in different populations.

Pictured, a breakdown of the different coronavirus genomes and to which of the three major group they belong to. The lines indicate a rough split between the type. The larger the circle, the higher the amount of cases

HOW DOES CORONAVIRUS HIDE IN THE BODY?

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has a large number of spikes sticking out of its surface which it uses to attach to and enter cells in the human body.

These spikes are coated in sugars, known as glycans, which disguise their viral proteins and help them evade the body's immune system.

'By coating themselves in sugars, viruses are like a wolf in sheep's clothing,' explained Professor Crispin.

The coronavirus has a relatively low level of sugar shielding.

The lower glycan density means there are fewer obstacles for the immune system to neutralise the virus with antibodies.

The study has thrown up an oddity that the original A strain spread through West Coast USA despite not being being the most prevalent in China, the B strain.

However because both strains were in existence by January, when US got its first case, it does not mean it arrived any earlier and was not detected. The researchers said the study was too small to draw any firm conclusions.

The academics' published work - which has been scrutinised by fellow scientists - only traced the samples of 160 patients across the world, including many of the first cases in Europe and the US.

Methods used to trace the prehistoric migration of ancient humans were adapted to track the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

The team have now updated their analysis to include more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases up to the end of March to provide a clearer snapshot. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The smaller snapshot, published in the journal PNAS, initially suggested that type C was the most common in Europe.

But the data now shows type B is spreading more rampantly - all but one of 31 SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from patients in Switzerland were of the second cluster.

It comes after two separate genetic studies found most of New York's outbreak came from Europe, and revealed the infection was being spread in mid-February - weeks before the city's first confirmed case.

Methods used to trace the prehistoric migration of ancient humans was adapted to track the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19

NEW YORK'S OUTBREAK CAME MOSTLY FROM EUROPE - NOT CHINA

The first cases of coronavirus in New York spread mostly from Europe, according to two scientific studies.

Researchers believe the virus was being spread around the city by mid-February - weeks before New York's first confirmed case.

The scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai N.Y.U. and Grossman School of Medicine studied DNA from thousands of samples of coronavirus patients and concluded the first travelers to bring the virus to the city came from Europe, not Asia.

But they also found that the strand of the virus that arrived in Washington state came from China.

Both research teams analyzed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.

One of the studies detected seven separate strains of viruses that arrived in the New York City area and researchers expect to find more.

Despite examining different examples of the outbreak, researchers from both teams reached largely the same conclusions about its origins, according to specialists.

Dr Harm van Bakel, a geneticist and co-author of the Icahn School's study, told the New York Times: 'The majority is clearly European.'

Researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai NYU scientists studied DNA from thousands of samples of coronavirus patients to conclude travellers from Europe brought the virus to the Big Apple.

But they also found that the strand of the virus that arrived in Washington state came from China, echoing the finding of Dr Forster and team.

The Cambridge scientists found that two thirds of the 310 virus samples sequenced in the US were type A.

And all of the American cases linked to cruise ships had type B strains. It is not clear what ships they caught the virus on - but the Diamond Princess, quarantined off the coast of Japan for weeks, recorded more than 700 infections.

Data showed England's first two cases - thought to be a University of York student and his mother at the end of January - had type A, suggesting they caught it in China.

No other samples from England, Scotland or Wales were type A, with almost 30 of the 40 viruses shown to be type B.

Dr Forster told MailOnline it was possible the UK's outbreak could be traced back to Italy but that the data was too limited to make any conclusion.

The other cases recorded across Britain were type C, which is also likely to be traced back to East Asia.

The UK's first 'super-spreader' - father-of-two Steve Walsh - was known to have went to a business conference in Singapore and infected scores of patients in Sussex.

Dr Forster told MailOnline that type A originally mutated into type B within China - but type C, the 'daughter' of B, evolved outside of the nation.

He admitted scientists are clueless as to how type B 'pushed aside' its predecessor to become more common in China - but the question will be answered 'one day'.

Type B was found to be comfortable in the immune systems of people in Wuhan and did not need to mutate to adapt.

UK coronavirus vaccine trials to begin 'within a month' says PM

However, outside of Wuhan and in the bodies of people from different locations, the variation mutated much more rapidly.

This indicated it was adapting to try and survive and overcome resistance among other populations, such as Westerners.

Data analysis suggests the original strain of the virus could have been circulating in China as far back as September.

And Dr Forster said the type B strain was 'alive and kicking' by Christmas Eve, their analysis revealed.

It means the virus had already mutated before China recorded any COVID-19 cases - Wuhan first described an outbreak of a mysterious virus on December 31.

He told MailOnline: 'The majority of cases in Wuhan are B type while a derived C type later emerged and spread initially via Singapore.'

And he suggested type C was not mutating - but called for caution over his finding, saying the sample was very small.

Dr Forster added that the data used was just a snapshot and did not include tens of thousands of confirmed cases recorded in each country.

For example, China's outbreak may mainly consist of type A - but the data analysed suggests that is not the case.

Type A is the closest to the one found in bats and pangolins and is considered to be the 'root' of the outbreak.

Type A has two sub-clusters and the first, labelled as the T-allele, has substantial links to East Asia as it was found in Americans that lived in Wuhan.

However, the second A type sub-cluster, called the C-allele, is slightly different due to a string of mutations.

In the study, the scientists said: 'Nearly half of the types in this subcluster, however, are found outside East Asia, mainly in the US and Australia.'

The original study had access to 93 type B genomes and 74 were in either Wuhan (22), other parts of eastern China (31) or neighbouring Asian countries (21).

A smattering were identified elsewhere, but type B had a strong affinity for Wuhan and is derived from type A via two mutations, at T8782C and C28144T.

The scientists argue that these methods could help predict future global hot spots of disease transmission and surge.

Coronavirus mostly spread to New York from Europe and was sweeping through the city by mid-February, study of genomes reveals

The first cases of coronavirus that arrived in New York spread mostly from Europe, according to two scientific studies.

Researchers believe the virus was being spread around the city by mid-February - weeks before New York's first confirmed case.

The scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai N.Y.U. and Grossman School of Medicine studied DNA from thousands of samples of coronavirus patients and concluded that the first travelers to bring the virus to the city came from Europe, not Asia, according to The New York Times.

But they also found that the strand of the virus that arrived in Washington state came from China.

President Trump banned entry to the US by foreign nationals who had visited China within the past two weeks on 31 January. He banned travel from Europe on 11 March.

DNA Researchers believe the virus was being spread around the city by mid-February - weeks before New York's first confirmed case. This map is based on an earlier based on an earlier genome study and shows eight different strains of coronavirus identified by scientists and how they have spread around the world

Travel data shows 3.4 million travelers from countries that would end up hardest-hit by the coronavirus outbreak entered the US as the pandemic was starting

In mid-March travelers coming to New York from Europe, where outbreaks in Italy and Spain were already spiking, were being asked at John F. Kennedy International Airport only if they had been to China or Iran, not if they had visited the hardest-hit nations in Europe, the Times reports.

Both research teams analyzed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.

One of the studies detected seven separate strains of viruses that arrived in the New York City area and researchers expect to find more.

Despite examining different examples of the outbreak, researchers from both teams reached largely the same conclusions about its origins, according to specialists.

Dr Harm van Bakel, a geneticist and co-author of the Icahn School's study, told the Times: 'The majority is clearly European.'

It was not until late February that Italy would begin locking down towns and cities as well as imposing restrictions on mass gatherings.

Although the New York outbreak appeared to originate in Europe, the Washington state cases appear to have come from China.

Researchers found viruses in Washington, which was the first major outbreak in the US, shared mutations in common with ones isolated in Wuhan by Chinese medics.

The first confirmed case in New York came on March 1 and around two weeks later new infections began to soar.

Previously researchers have said that coronavirus mutates very slowly with only tiny differences between the different strains.

But a new study by Cambridge scientists found there are three main types of the novel infecting people, and the strains may be mutating to conquer the immune systems of populations around the world.

Last week travel data emerged showing 3.4 million travelers from countries that would end up as the hardest-hit by the outbreak entered the US as the pandemic was starting.

Figures from the US Commerce Department from December, January and February, which were the critical early months in the outbreak, reveal how hundreds of thousands or even millions of undetected coronavirus cases could have entered the country while medical experts remained unaware of the seriousness of the illness.

The world first heard about the virus in December, when it remained confined to China and mostly in the epicenter of Wuhan.

Beijing was accused of covering up the spread of the virus, which may have left China's borders through asymptomatic patients well before new cases were picked up around the world.

Isolated cases started showing up in Europe in late January, before the pandemic took off in Europe in February.

The travel data shows 759,493 people entered the US from China before President Trump's travel ban on 31 January.

Another 343,402 arrived from Italy, 418,848 from Spain and about 1.9 million more came from Britain.

Medical experts say it cannot be known how many travelers may have been infected, but it's highly likely some were not exhibiting symptoms.

And as air travel has surged in recent years, enabling the pandemic to spread as it has, some officials suspect the virus' true impact was happening sooner than they realized.

New York cathedral transforms into extra hospital for COVID patients

Trump has been criticized for not rolling out a widespread testing program when cases began spiking in the US.

At least eight strains of the virus are being tracked by researchers around the world, using genetic detective work to show how the virus spreads.

The virus appears to mutate very slowly, with only tiny differences between the different strains and that none of the strains of the virus are more deadly than another, experts say.

They also added it does not appear the strains will grow more lethal as they evolve.

Scientists also said that despite conspiracy theories falsely claiming the virus was made in a lab, the virus's genome shows it began in bats.

According to figures updated last night, coronavirus had infected 1.5 million people worldwide and killed nearly 88,000 people.

The US has seen more than 435,000 people infected and over 14,800 fatalities.

New York has suffered more than 150,000 cases with over 6,200 deaths.

~A.