3 ms·

> 1) A disease traveled hundreds of miles to a large city without leaving a trace of evidence It was certainly circulating in, say, California, for a couple mo

> 1) A disease traveled hundreds of miles to a large city without leaving a trace of evidence It was certainly circulating in, say, California, for a couple months before it was actually detected [0]. During flu season, seems to me a new respiratory disease can probably get pretty far before anyone notices it's not the flu. It probably crossed the Pacific before it was detected and reported in China, what's a few hundred miles? All you have to go on are symptoms, and mild/moderate covid doesn't look like anything special, it's not Ebola. [0] https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/First-known-U-S-coronavirus-death-occurred-on-15217316.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/First-known-U-S-c...

gojomo 6y ago
That story only reports a death-with-COVID that was a few weeks (February 6) before the first-at-the-time discovered community case (February ~26: https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/patient-and-precautions-uc-davis-medical-center/ https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/patient-and-precaut...). I've seen two people on Twitter claim UCSF personnel have told them COVID was discovered retrospectively in UCSF December 2019 autopsies: https://twitter.com/gojomo/status/1333932912329146368 https://twitter.com/gojomo/status/1333932912329146368 Neither of the people claiming that seemed to me be prevaricators/hoaxers/people-with-an-axe-to-grind. And, that sort of discovery would be a plausible outcome of a review of all autopsies back to December that California ordered in April – https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsom-orders-all-ca-counties-to-review-autopsies-dating-to-december https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsom-orders-all-ca-coun... – on which I've seen little followup reporting. But, I've seen no other confirmation of these UCSF rumors in official statements. So: still wondering what hard evidence, if any dates COVID-in-the-US to December 2019 or earlier. (There's a survey of December blood donors which found 2% immune reactivity - but the imprecision of that test, especially given known cross-reactivities with other 'common cold' coronaviruses has caused some experts to discount it as definitive proof that COVID was circulating then.)
- roywiggins 6y ago
  If you push the first death to Feb 6, then they were probably infected mid-January, and without any known links to China, it seems much more likely than not that there were a cases that percolated around California in December-January before it caused that death: > “What it means is we had coronavirus circulating in the community much earlier than we had documented and much earlier than we had thought,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County’s public health officer. “Those deaths probably represent many, many more infections. And so there had to be chains of transmission that go back much earlier.”
  - gojomo 6y ago
    We're agreed on what's probable, but I'd love to find reliably-reported evidentiary confirmation, especially about magnitude of pre-February-2020 or even 2019 US circulation!

gojomo 6y ago

That story only reports a death-with-COVID that was a few weeks (February 6) before the first-at-the-time discovered community case (February ~26: https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/patient-and-precautions-uc-davis-medical-center/ https://www.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/news/patient-and-precaut...). I've seen two people on Twitter claim UCSF personnel have told them COVID was discovered retrospectively in UCSF December 2019 autopsies: https://twitter.com/gojomo/status/1333932912329146368 https://twitter.com/gojomo/status/1333932912329146368 Neither of the people claiming that seemed to me be prevaricators/hoaxers/people-with-an-axe-to-grind. And, that sort of discovery would be a plausible outcome of a review of all autopsies back to December that California ordered in April – https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsom-orders-all-ca-counties-to-review-autopsies-dating-to-december https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/newsom-orders-all-ca-coun... – on which I've seen little followup reporting. But, I've seen no other confirmation of these UCSF rumors in official statements. So: still wondering what hard evidence, if any dates COVID-in-the-US to December 2019 or earlier. (There's a survey of December blood donors which found 2% immune reactivity - but the imprecision of that test, especially given known cross-reactivities with other 'common cold' coronaviruses has caused some experts to discount it as definitive proof that COVID was circulating then.)

roywiggins 6y ago
If you push the first death to Feb 6, then they were probably infected mid-January, and without any known links to China, it seems much more likely than not that there were a cases that percolated around California in December-January before it caused that death: > “What it means is we had coronavirus circulating in the community much earlier than we had documented and much earlier than we had thought,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County’s public health officer. “Those deaths probably represent many, many more infections. And so there had to be chains of transmission that go back much earlier.”
- gojomo 6y ago
  We're agreed on what's probable, but I'd love to find reliably-reported evidentiary confirmation, especially about magnitude of pre-February-2020 or even 2019 US circulation!