Two new studies involving evolutionary genomics, computer simulations, and travel records from the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that inadequate travel monitoring, contact tracing, and community surveillance allowed the novel coronavirus to spread unchecked to and throughout North America and Europe in late January or early February.The studies, published late last week in Science, traced the United States' COVID-19 outbreak to a traveler who flew from China to Seattle in late January or early February, seeding the nation's first outbreak, which then went undetected for 3 to 6 weeks.Undetected, uncheckedThe first study, led by University of Washington researchers in Seattle, involved genomic analysis of 453 SARS-CoV-2 viruses, which cause