Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed coroners to review autopsies back to December in an effort to understand the timing of when the coronavirus pandemic first reached the state.
Newsom said during a Wednesday news conference that ordering a review will “help guide a deeper understanding of when this pandemic really started to impact Californians.”
“When this occurred is important forensic information, profoundly significant in understanding the epidemiology of this disease, all of those things are brought to bear with more clarity and light,” Newsom said. “Not only because of this specific announcement, but I imagine subsequent announcements that may be made by similar efforts all across the state of California.”
The directive comes a day after the Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner announced that an autopsy showed a person died from COVID-19 complications on Feb. 6, earlier than previously thought. Prior to the announcement, it was thought that a Washington state man was the first to die on Feb. 29.
Some have speculated that the illness might have been circulating in the United States far earlier than anticipated. CNN host Chris Cuomo, who was diagnosed with COVID-19, thinks the contagion might have been around for many months.
“The kids now, anecdotally, Cristina believes that at least two of them have had it in the last few months. Why? We don’t know, but atypically long-duration sinus, fever, lethargy. I think we’re going to learn that coronavirus has been in this country since, like, October, that there have been cases,” Cuomo speculated.
The first confirmed domestic case of the coronavirus was reported in Washington state on Jan. 21. There have been more than 840,000 cases in the U.S. and 46,600 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
