COVID-19: First US Deaths Took Place Weeks Earlier Than Thought

The first US deaths of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has become a global pandemic, succumbed weeks earlier than previously thought, officials in California said late Tuesday.

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The Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner said autopsies on two people who died in early and mid-February showed they had been infected by the virus. Samples sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tested positive on Tuesday.

None of the victims had a travel history, which means that they were probably infected in the community, so the virus was already spreading. An event that occurred weeks before the first officially recorded death in Seattle, The New York Times reported.

According to California's Santa Clara County coroner's office, a third individual also tested positive for COVID-19.

'Testing criteria set by the CDC at the time-restricted testing to only individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms,' it added.

'As the Medical Examiner-Coroner continues to carefully investigate deaths throughout the county, we anticipate additional deaths from COVID-19 will be identified.'

Jeffrey Smith, a doctor who serves as county executive for Santa Clara County, said at a briefing earlier this month that the virus could have been 'freewheeling' in California for longer 'a lot longer than we first believed,' the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

Initially, the first death in the United States from coronavirus was taken as a reference to one registered on February 29, in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle, in Washington state.

The truth is -the Times reports- that the first death in California, on February 6, was only 73 days ago and in little more than two months, the US economy would be paralyzed, nearly the entire country and much of the world would be seen forced to stay at home and life would be transformed around the planet.

In that time, over 40,000 US citizens passed away, part of a global figure exceeding 172,000, a toll that probably largely underestimates the true account, the report stressed.