Breaking News: First CA COVID-19 death was Feb 6th

[FreeState]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/21/coronavirus-earliest-covid-19-deaths-in-bay-area-occurred-in-february-not-march/

Two individuals who died in Santa Clara County in February had tissue samples that tested positive for COVID-19, health officials learned Tuesday, revealing the novel coronavirus was responsible for deaths in the Bay Area earlier than medical officials initially believed.

County Executive Jeff Smith confirmed the test results were received Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after being sent to the federal agency by the Medical Examiner-Coroner.

The individuals who were tested posthumously for COVID-19 died at home on February 6 and February 17.

[uponit7771]

1. Takes, what ... 2 weeks minimum to die of CV19?

[SunSeeker]

5. Pretty much. nt

[SheltieLover]

2. K&R

[intrepidity]

3. This may substantially change the narrative here

Prior to this new info:

The 7th US case was the 2nd California case, diagnosed on Jan. 31--a Santa Clara man who had traveled to Wuhan.

The 9th US case was the 3rd* California case, diagnosed Feb 2nd--a Santa Clara woman who had recent travel to Wuhan (unrelated to case #2 above).

So this new info dramatically alters CA's early narrative. I hope these samples can be sequenced by the Nextstrain folks soon. And I really wonder if either of these new cases had recent travel to China. If not, they are likely the (for now) earliest community transmission cases.

(* not counting the State Dept flights of US citizens from Hubei into CA)

[FreeState]

4. It also exposes a huge hole in our system

Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2020, 10:33 AM - Edit history (1)

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

This should have never been policy - the only reason it was is that the Trump administration refused the WHO tests.

[SunSeeker]

6. Totally agree. The WHO test was made available to all countries on Jan. 17.

South Korea jumped on it and started mass producing it. That's why they had enough tests to do targeted quarantines and were able to get the virus under control without shutting down their economy.

[Squinch]

7. Wow. I didn't know it was that early. That pig really has thousands of

deaths on his hands. This could ALL have been prevented.

[uponit7771]

8. It's worse, China gave the genetic sequence to WHO on Jan 12 from there competent countries

... that could afford there own test got to making them by the millions which is what is supposed to happen.

the WHO test are for countries that can't afford there own basically but the US could afford the test and Trump admin screwed up the test making.

What ever money is going to be spent on making a test for a possible novel virus that ends up to be nothing is small comparing to what we have now.

It should be required now by the UN and other nations that the top 3 most populated countries in the world have pandemic response teams