the.com/patient zero
The first domino, forever blamed for everyone else falling.
means The first identified case in an outbreak, traced back to find how and where a disease started spreading.
from Born in epidemiology, where investigators number infected individuals during an outbreak investigation; 'patient zero' marks the index case the chain is traced from. The term got a jolt of infamy in the 1980s AIDS crisis, when a Canadian flight attendant was mislabeled in media and later research as the origin of the North American epidemic — a claim since debunked, but the phrase had already escaped into the wild, now used for the first case of anything, literal or metaphorical.
- term origin
- Coined during 1980s AIDS epidemiologic investigation
- actual meaning
- First documented case, not always the true source
- famous myth
- Original flight attendant case was later proven innocent
- modern use
- Now slang for any outbreak's unlucky origin story