The recent autopsy report of two deceased persons from Northern California’s Santa Clara County reveals that the two had died of the coronavirus in early and mid-February, 3 weeks before the first official COVID-19 death.
According to health experts, this revelation will help in studying the virus profoundly as to when it started spreading.
In a press release issued by the county on Tuesday, the two deaths happened on 6 and 17 February.
Meanwhile, the first death in the US due to nCOV was recorded to be on 29 February from Kirkland in Washington.
Dr. Sara Cody, the chief medical officer of the county told the New York Times that the deceased didn’t have any travel history to China or any other foreign country.
On Wednesday, Harvard Global Health Institute’s director Dr. Ashish K. Jha told CNN’s “New Day” that to learn that the virus caused such an early death is a significant breakthrough. According to him, a person who dies of the virus in early February must have contracted it in mid-January as it takes two to three weeks to die from the virus attack
Assuming that community spread in California started in early January, he said that this finding has led them to look into early coronavirus cases to determine when it originally started affecting the US.
