CDC confirms that coronavirus already spreading in New York City when European travel ban went into

A U.S. ban on travelers arriving from the EU on March 13 came too late to prevent widespread community transmission in New York City, according to a report Thursday from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC researchers analyzed the genetic code of virus samples collected from three dozen infected New Yorkers in early March, and found that most of those early cases of the coronavirus could be traced back to Europe. It also confirms what many researchers have already said: That widespread community transmission was well under way in New York City by the time mitigation measures, such as the travel ban, school closures and stay-at-home orders went into effect. None of the New York City strains were directly connected to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated — an “unanticipated” finding, according to the CDC researchers. “Although travel restrictions are an important mitigation strategy, by the time the European restrictions were implemented, importation and community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 had already occurred,” reads the report. It’s not the first research to indicate travel from Europe triggered New York City’s severe outbreak, the worst in the U.S., in which more than 25,000 people have died. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeated for weeks that the virus came from Europe, and said the CDC report “definitively explains what happened in New York.”