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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaPeople & Culture

Evidence of first coronavirus death weeks earlier than previously reported alters US timeline

  • Limited testing meant three deaths were not counted in Covid-19 toll until autopsy
  • Santa Clara County will thoroughly investigate previous deaths and expect to find more died of coronavirus

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Three residents of California who died in February and March have been found to have died of coronavirus. The first death in Santa Clara County on February 6 predates the previously earliest reported death in the United States by nearly three weeks. Photo: Reuters
Wendy Wu
Autopsies in California indicate that the first known Covid-19 death in the United States occurred earlier than previously thought, which may change the understanding of how the coronavirus outbreak unfolded in the US.
The public health agency in Santa Clara County in California said late on Tuesday that tissue samples from an autopsy on a person who died on February 6 at home were positive for Covid-19.
The death was three weeks earlier than the previously reported first US coronavirus fatality on February 26, a 58-year-old man in Kirkland in Washington state.
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The Emergency Operations Centre of Santa Clara County stated on its website that its medical examiner-coroner had done autopsies on two individuals who had died at home on February 6 and 17.

Tissue samples from both cases were sent to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and in both cases were found to be positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

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