The Antelope Valley Times

Your community. Your issues. Your news.

  • Home
  • Latest News
  • Local
    • Palmdale
    • Lancaster
    • Los Angeles County
    • Littlerock
    • Lake Los Angeles
    • Rosamond
    • Edwards AFB
    • Acton
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Advertise
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    Show Search

UCLA: COVID-19 may have been circulating in LA County in December

by The AV Times Staff • September 10, 2020 1 Comment

LOS ANGELES – UCLA researchers and colleagues have found that there was a significant increase in patients with coughs and acute respiratory failure at UCLA Health hospitals and clinics beginning in late December, suggesting that COVID-19 may have been circulating in Los Angeles County months before the first definitive cases in the U.S. were identified, it was announced Thursday.

This sudden spike in patients with these symptoms, which continued through February, represents an unexpected 50% increase in such cases when compared with the same time period in each of the previous five years.

The findings, the study authors say, demonstrate the importance of analyzing electronic health records to monitor and quickly identify irregular changes in patient populations. The researchers’ approach, in which they focused not only on hospitalization data but also on data from outpatient settings, may help epidemiologists and health systems detect future epidemics sooner.

The study appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research.

“For many diseases, data from the outpatient setting can provide an early warning to emergency departments and hospital intensive care units of what is to come,” said Dr. Joann Elmore, the study’s lead author and a professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The majority of COVID-19 studies evaluate hospitalization data, but we also looked at the larger outpatient clinic setting, where most patients turn first for medical care when illness and symptoms arise.”

As scientists and doctors continue to learn more about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, health systems and public health agencies are also attempting to predict and monitor cases. Analyzing electronic patient records, the researchers say, could help health authorities more effectively identify and control outbreaks like the current pandemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands worldwide and disrupted billions of lives.

“The pandemic has really highlighted our need for agile health care analytics that enable real-time symptom and disease surveillance using electronic health records data,” said Dr. Michael Pfeffer, a study co-author and chief information officer for UCLA Health. “Technology, including artificial intelligence powered by machine learning, has further potential to identify and track irregular changes in health data, including significant excesses of patients with specific disease-type presentations in the weeks or months prior to an outbreak.”

The researchers evaluated more than 10 million health system and patient visit records for UCLA Health outpatient, emergency department and hospital facilities, comparing data from the period between Dec. 1 and Feb. 29 — the months prior to increased public awareness of COVID-19 in the U.S. — with data from the same period over the previous five years.

They found that outpatient clinic visits by UCLA patients seeking care for coughs increased by over 50% and exceeded the average number of visits for the same complaint over the prior five years by more than 1,000. Similarly, they discovered a significant excess in the number of patients seen in emergency departments for reports of coughs and of patients hospitalized with acute respiratory failure during this time period. These excesses remained even after accounting for changes in patient populations and seasonal variation, according to UCLA.

–

Filed Under: Health, Home, Los Angeles County

1 comment for "UCLA: COVID-19 may have been circulating in LA County in December"

  1. John Evans says

    September 13, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    So tell us something we didn’t know. How many people observed the non-flu flu of January and February. This was already discussed in Stanford and USC studies conveniently ignored by Dims and the media months ago. Numbers being real or fake, it all peaked in April. We haven’t had an epidemic based on mortality rates for over 3 months. So Dims, do you even know the definition of an epidemic? Or is the fear narrative to coerce conduct and destroy liberty the real goal?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Comments

  • Diana on Alex Padilla formally appointed to US Senate: “Just what California needs,,,,, another Democrat. Keep the train wreck going!” Jan 19, 04:58
  • Alby on New report finds coronavirus reduced life expectancy for Blacks and Latinos: “Too spent to mind.” Jan 18, 23:18
  • Alby on New report finds coronavirus reduced life expectancy for Blacks and Latinos: “Wow you sound like your ready to meet in a back alley way with your blmgbtq friends with your fists…” Jan 18, 23:14
  • Piehole on Op-ed: Kevin McCarthy and Mike Garcia must resign: “Hillary said the election was rigged when she lost. This is why the impeachment started before Trump became president. Was…” Jan 18, 22:57
  • Mike on Op-ed: Kevin McCarthy and Mike Garcia must resign: “Cool. Your vote doesn’t count so just stop voting. That will show em.” Jan 18, 21:56

© 2021 · The Antelope Valley Times. All rights reserved. Terms of Use