Coronavirus circulated in U.S. weeks earlier than thought, mistaken for flu, health official says

[webfact]

Coronavirus circulated in U.S. weeks earlier than thought, mistaken for flu, health official says

By Sharon Bernstein and Kanishka Singh

 

FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian wearing a face mask plays ball with their dog in the parking lot of a closed Victoria Golf Course as authorities encourage social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Carson, California, U.S., April 18, 2020. REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon

 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - The novel coronavirus circulated in January in California, weeks earlier than thought, and early deaths were likely mistaken for the flu, a county health official said on Wednesday.

 

A 57-year-old woman had died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, far earlier than any other reported cases in the United States, said Sara Cody, the health officer in Santa Clara County, California.

 

It was previously thought that the first U.S. death from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, was in Washington state on Feb. 29.

News of the deaths in California could improve public health officials' understanding of how the outbreak took hold in the United States.

 

Additional early deaths may also be discovered in California, further changing public health officials' understanding of the virus' progress. On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he had asked medical examiners from all 58 counties in California to research deaths that might have been COVID-related back to December.

 

The California woman's death and two other early cases - a 69-year-old man who died Feb. 17 and a 70-year-old man who died March 6 - were confirmed to have been COVID-19 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after it tested tissue samples.

 

The county had previously identified its first case of community transmission - infectious spread among people who had not been to China or other early hot spots - on Feb. 28, Cody said. But none of the three patients who died had traveled.

 

“What these deaths tell us is that we had community transmission probably to a significant degree, far earlier than we had known, and that indicates that the virus was probably introduced and circulating in our community far earlier than we had known,” Cody said.

 

Because the region was undergoing a bad flu season at the time, many cases may have been misclassified as influenza, she said.

 

The cases were likely "iceberg tips," Cody said, indicating that many more people were also infected.

 

The three cases were discovered because the county medical examiner's office was not satisfied that it had found the correct cause of death, Cody said. Because coronavirus tests were not available, they saved tissue samples, which they sent to the CDC.

 

The testing parameters at the time by the CDC restricted testing to individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms.

 

U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 46,000 on Wednesday, doubling in a little over a week and rising on Tuesday by a near-record amount in a single day, according to a Reuters tally https://reut.rs/2WVPxuE.

 

The United States has by far the world's largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases at more than 830,000.

 

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alex Richardson and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-04-23

 

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[pegman]

Another indication that the Trump Adm was caught with its pants down when the virus hit USA shores. 

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, pegman said:

Another indication that the Trump Adm was caught with its pants down when the virus hit USA shores. 

 

I add, surely the great US world's best medical industry including best in the world hospitals are well capable of quickly differentiating between: the common cold, influenza and Covid 19? If not why not? What went wrong?

 

But no doubt the smartest president in the world  who thought it was a hoax has already identified someone to blame and who will receive his 'your fired' treatment. 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by scorecard

[yawg]

Health officials are only sock puppets of big pharma. I don't believe all the BS in the mass media. Many proven facts around the virus are out there and ignored or suppressed. 

[Walter Travolta]

6 hours ago, pegman said:

Another indication that the Trump Adm was caught with its pants down when the virus hit USA shores. 

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, yawg said:

Health officials are only sock puppets of big pharma. I don't believe all the BS in the mass media. Many proven facts around the virus are out there and ignored or suppressed. 

Seems fair comment considering that it's big pharma and health insurance companies (both very powerful and ruthless) which are hell bent on stopping any form of national health service for poor (and all) Americans.

[gargamon]

14 minutes ago, scorecard said:

Seems fair comment considering that it's big pharma and health insurance companies (both very powerful and ruthless) which are hell bent on stopping any form of national health service for poor (and all) Americans.

I would have a different opinion on that. The US doesn't have national health service because they can't let the "colored's" have free health care. The same applies to education and inversely to drug laws that focus on giving the "colored's" much longer sentences. The oligarchs that actually run the country see the poor whites the same way they see the "colored's". If you look at the big picture, the US is right up there with the worst racist countries on the planet.

[stevenl]

4 hours ago, yawg said:

Health officials are only sock puppets of big pharma. I don't believe all the BS in the mass media. Many proven facts around the virus are out there and ignored or suppressed. 

Which proven facts are ignored or suppressed?

[stevenl]

1 hour ago, Walter Travolta said:

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

So why did US seemingly ignore the end of January WHO warning for a worldwide health threat?

[bkkcanuck8]

2 hours ago, Walter Travolta said:

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

So you are saying the UN is actually the rightful government of the US and the US President is just a state governor ...

 

[kamahele]

3 hours ago, Walter Travolta said:

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

Wrong. George W. Bush put together a pandemic team at the White House, which Obama strengthened and Trump disbanded. 

[earlinclaifornia]

1 hour ago, gargamon said:

I would have a different opinion on that. The US doesn't have national health service because they can't let the "colored's" have free health care. The same applies to education and inversely to drug laws that focus on giving the "colored's" much longer sentences. The oligarchs that actually run the country see the poor whites the same way they see the "colored's". If you look at the big picture, the US is right up there with the worst racist countries on the planet.

So true. The trump claimed the President was not born here, hence those raciest Americans were all in. Birther Movement is why trump won. Pure HATE 

[ukrules]

2 hours ago, stevenl said:

So why did US seemingly ignore the end of January WHO warning for a worldwide health threat?

On January 31 Trump banned travel from China as a direct response to the at that time 'potential' pandemic.

 

The WHO led by some idiot named Tedros advised against this, the wHO were and are wrong.

[bkkcanuck8]

27 minutes ago, ukrules said:

On January 31 Trump banned travel from China as a direct response to the at that time 'potential' pandemic.

 

The WHO led by some idiot named Tedros advised against this, the wHO were and are wrong.

WHO being wrong does not absolve Trump of his mismanagement.  Trump being an idiot does not absolve WHO of it's early failings.  BTW, Trump did not 'ban travel from China' -- there were still over 40,000 'authorized' people who arrived from China after this supposed ban...  it would be more correct that there were some restrictions on travel.  they landed and for the most part people who did come in said there were no checks on them after they arrived.   The shutting down of flights from China was the correct thing to do, but then after that point... he seems to have said, job done, then ... it is a hoax, then there is no deaths, there are only a few people, it will magically disappear, no one knew this was a problem in February and March, so... basically... he played it like it was a PR problem and pretty much was totally incompetent after that point... so... it is like a broken clock being right twice a day... if there were hundreds of hours in a day ...

[Silencer]

2 hours ago, gargamon said:

I would have a different opinion on that. The US doesn't have national health service because they can't let the "colored's" have free health care. The same applies to education and inversely to drug laws that focus on giving the "colored's" much longer sentences. The oligarchs that actually run the country see the poor whites the same way they see the "colored's". If you look at the big picture, the US is right up there with the worst racist countries on the planet.

Although I don't agree with your point...that's ok...we all have opinions. What I fail to understand is your use of the word "colored's". You are either very unfamiliar with American culture, and therefore it makes your entire point frivolous, OR you are more racist than most people I know. Which is it?

[Russell17au]

4 hours ago, Walter Travolta said:

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

You are wrong it is not the job of WHO to intercept epidemics/pandemics. You need to do a lot of research as to what powers the WHO have and how they work. It is not the WHO that failed miserably it is the governments of the world. For instance the Australian Health minister has been questioned before a senate committee and he has admitted that the WHO informed him on the 1st January and he did nothing about it for 3 weeks and I would say that it was the same for America who did nothing as well until it got a good hold and then blamed the WHO. Now in American they have claimed that the virus was in the country before they claimed it was because now there is proof that the first victim of the Covid-19 died on Feb 6th weeks earlier than they thought. America would have known about it on the 1 Jan the same as Australia and they did nothing about it the same as Australia. So both America and Australia need to answer why they did nothing for 3 weeks. This is not all China's or the WHO fault, there are many others who need to answer a lot of questions about what they failed to do when they were told

[natway09]

Walter, The President of The United Stares (the goose) had been advised, he chose to put it under the carpet for nearly a month, longer than the Chinese did once it got out of Whuhan

[Krataiboy]

What about that mysterious US outbreak of disease and deaths eventually attributed to vaping?

 

Could that have been an early manifestation of the virus - possibly later taken to Wuhan by a US competitor in the world military games held there shortly before the initial Chinese coronavirus outbreak?

 

Not a conspiracy theory. Just an idea possibly worth exploring - particularly since I gather the lung damage from both vaping and COVID 19 are remarkably similar.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Krataiboy

[gargamon]

5 hours ago, Silencer said:

Although I don't agree with your point...that's ok...we all have opinions. What I fail to understand is your use of the word "colored's". You are either very unfamiliar with American culture, and therefore it makes your entire point frivolous, OR you are more racist than most people I know. Which is it?

colored's applies to black, brown, yellow, etc., anyone other than whites. How would you refer to them? And, no, I'm not racist...

[pegman]

10 hours ago, Walter Travolta said:

You fail to realise, that any admin, blue or red, are not there to intercept epidemics/pandemics. That is the job of WHO, and have failed miserably. It is the WHO's job to inform governments of potential health threats. If it isnt the job of the WHO to contain and advise about these things, why do they exist? 
You could could blame any government around the globe for the banking crash in 2008 or the MERS and SARS virus's, but that also would be an incredibly idiotic path to take. Pull your pants up Aunt Peg ????

 

The CDC has a $6.5b annual budget. What the hell is that for if not monitoring for incoming pandemics.  I come from north of the 49th parallel and in 2008 our banks had no problems because we regulate that industry.  It is the Americans that allow their banksters set regulatory policy and they then reap their just rewards. We had no housing crisis for the same reason.