Health officials retrace steps of latest NC coronavirus patients: voting, dining, travel
Two days after attending a Biogen management conference in Boston, a Wake County resident who traveled to the conference went to a poll site on the last day of early voting in Raleigh while showing symptoms for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
That person was one of dozens of attendees who have now tested positive for COVID-19, showing just how quickly the virus can spread from large gatherings. A majority of the coronavirus cases in Massachusetts have been linked to the Biogen conference, which took place between Feb. 26-27.
Attendees now show up on the coronavirus case list in several states, including five people in North Carolina who have tested positive.
The fallout from the Biogen conference led Massachusetts to declare a state of emergency on Tuesday, with 70 of the 92 coronavirus cases in that state now linked to the conference, the NBC affiliate in Boston reported.
On Tuesday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency as well. Wake County officials are tracing the five unnamed individuals’ steps to see where they possibly exposed others to the virus. Public health officials said Tuesday the patients were active throughout the Triangle while showing symptoms at places like the airport, a local restaurant and the Biogen offices in Research Triangle Park.
In response, Biogen asked all of its employees in North Carolina, Massachusetts and Switzerland to work from home to stop the spread of the virus.
Biogen is one of the local biotech scene’s largest employers, with around 1,450 employees here, The News & Observer previously reported.
Where the NC coronavirus patients went
Wake County said the affected individuals began showing symptoms between Feb. 29 and March 3. The CDC advises that the virus is most likely to be transmitted when people are showing symptoms, though that is not always the case.
Anna Stefano Robinson, a spokeswoman for Biogen, declined to comment on the company’s individual patients to protect their privacy.
On Tuesday, the county identified the places the five patients visited while showing symptoms. According to a news release:
▪ One coronavirus patient voted early in the primary election on Feb. 29. The person voted at Millbrook Exchange Community Center in Raleigh. Wake County Public Health has the names of the election officials and are working with them to further assess the risk of exposure at this location. According to election data, 1,400 people voted at the Millbrook Exchange Community Center on Feb. 29.
▪ Several of the affected patients went to work March 2-5 at the Biogen offices in Research Triangle Park while showing symptoms. The county’s public health staff is working with the company to assess exposure risk at the office.
▪ Several patients also traveled between Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Boston between March 2-6. Public health officials will reach out to people who were on those flights and are at risk of exposure.
▪ One of the patients ate at Zest Cafe & Home Art at 8831 Six Forks Road in Raleigh on March 4.
Local public health officials said they believe there is little risk of exposure outside of those locations, and they don’t plan to release the names of places the infected individuals visited while not symptomatic.
On Monday, Wake County also detailed the travels of an Indiana resident who attended the Biogen conference and later tested positive for COVID-19. That individual also visited Biogen’s RTP office.
What does Biogen do?
Biogen, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the largest biotech companies in the world and an influential part of the Triangle’s thriving biotech scene. Along with Massachusetts and California, North Carolina’s Research Triangle has one of the strongest biotech clusters in the nation, mostly centered around Research Triangle Park.
The company has had a presence in RTP for nearly 30 years, and has reportedly invested more than $125 million at its RTP office since 2016.
The company develops drugs for people who have serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, and focuses heavily on people with multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy and Alzheimer’s disease. Worldwide, its drugs bring in about $14 billion in sales, and the company employs around 7,500 people.
At its RTP campus, the company houses teams for manufacturing, quality control, laboratories, business administration and a patient call center.
Robinson said in an email Tuesday that while office-based employees are being directed to work from home, some lab employees are still working on-site.
“We still have essential employees working on-site, including key personnel in our laboratories and manufacturing facilities,” she said. The company declined to say how many people work in lab positions.
The company said it is working closely with local public health departments to “prioritize the well-being of the people who may have been exposed to COVID-19.” It is also putting into place an aggressive cleaning protocol around its office.
The company doesn’t believe the decision to send most workers home will affect its ability to supply medicines to patients, and Robinson said the company “absolutely” does not have concerns that any employees who have contracted or tested positive for the virus have contaminated medicines subsequently produced.
“At this stage, we do not anticipate any disruption in our ability to supply medicines to our patients, but of course we continue to closely monitor the situation,” she said.
Danger of large gatherings
Still, the fallout of the Biogen conference in Boston is being felt throughout the country, an example of why so many companies have now decided to cancel large gatherings.
Around 175 senior managers from across the company’s offices in the U.S. and internationally traveled to Boston in the last week of February, a spokesman for Biogen told The Wall Street Journal. The company told The Boston Herald that some traveled from Italy, which had just started to see outbreaks of COVID-19 around the time of the conference.
A few days later, people who attended the conference began experiencing symptoms, including those who had traveled to the conference from Wake County. Some Biogen employees also subsequently attended separate conferences just days later in Boston and Florida.
Four top executives — such as company CEO Michel Vounatsos and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Capello — all attended a health-care investment conference hosted by Cowen Inc. in Boston. One of the four executives eventually tested positive for the virus, a spokesman for the company told The Wall Street Journal.
Last Friday, after employees began being diagnosed as positive for COVID-19, the company sent out its order for employees to work from home and for those who had attended the conference to quarantine themselves.
By then, the North Carolina employees and the Indiana resident who attended the Boston conference and later tested positive for the virus had already spent time at the RTP office while being symptomatic.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 3:10 PM.
