Coronavirus: Covid-19 was in US earlier than first thought. Here’s why that’s important to know
- February deaths in California upend what experts thought they knew about the virus’s spread in US
- Antibody tests indicate a much greater incidence of infection, and possible recovery – information vital to help decide next steps to take
When Patricia Dowd, a 57-year-old auditor at a Silicon Valley chip maker, died on February 6, her death was a mystery. She’d developed flu-like symptoms but was already on the mend and working from home in San Jose, California; her daughter found her dead in her kitchen.
After flu tests came back negative, the coroner could only determine that she had probably suffered a heart attack – until Tuesday, when the Santa Clara County medical examiner announced that a postmortem tissue sample from Dowd came back positive for coronavirus.
Postmortem tests of Dowd and one other Santa Clara resident – a 69-year-old man who died on February 17 – have shown both were infected with the novel coronavirus. Their cases, combined with a growing pool of antibody test results, are upending what experts thought they knew about the virus’s spread in the United States.
Until Tuesday, it was thought that the first coronavirus deaths took place in Washington state, at the end of February. Now, even these newly confirmed cases are not necessarily thought to be the country’s very first cases.
What they are, health experts say, is proof that the virus has been present in the United States longer than previously believed.
Dr Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California San Francisco, was not surprised by the findings: “California has much more exposure to Wuhan and China than Washington state does. So, it makes sense that patient zero would be here.”
