A new study by American researchers, released on Thursday, suggests the deadly coronavirus may have already reached Los Angeles by late December, actively circulating in the area months before the first definitive cases in the United States were identified.
美国研究人员周四发布的一项新研究显示，致命的新冠病毒可能早在2019年12月底就出现在洛杉矶。在美国发现第一例确诊病例的几个月前，新冠病毒就在该地区活跃传播。
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), evaluated more than 10 million patient and health records for UCLA Health outpatient, emergency department and hospital facilities, spanning Dec 1, 2019, to Feb 29, 2020, and compared those records with data from the same period over the previous five years.
加州大学洛杉矶分校的研究人员对2019年12月1日至2020年2月29日期间超过1000万名加州大学洛杉矶分校门诊、急诊科和医院设施的病人和健康记录进行了评估，并将这些记录与此前五年的同期数据进行了比较。
The outpatient clinic visits by UCLA patients seeking care for coughs increased by over 50 percent and exceeded the average number of visits for the same complaint over the prior five years by more than 1,000.
加州大学洛杉矶分校的病人因为咳嗽而去门诊就诊的次数增加了50%以上，并且比过去五年中同一病症的平均就诊次数多了1000多次。
They also 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.
他们还发现，在这一时期，在急诊科就诊的咳嗽患者和因急性呼吸衰竭住院的患者数量“显著”增加。
These excesses remained even after accounting for changes in patient populations and seasonal variation, according to the study, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research.
根据发表在同行评议的《医学互联网研究杂志》上的研究，即使在考虑了患者数量和季节变化的影响后，这种增加行为仍然存在。
"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 Joann Elmore, the study's lead author and a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
该研究的主要作者、加州大学洛杉矶分校大卫格芬医学院的医学教授Elmore说:“对于许多疾病，门诊部的数据可以为急诊科和医院重症监护部门提供即将发生的情况提供早期预警。”
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