Washington state health officials say coronavirus may have been there in December

Public health officials in Washington state have possibly identified the earliest coronavirus case in the United States, a discovery that may push the arrival of the pandemic here back by almost a month. 

Since January, authorities have been dating the outset of the outbreak in the U.S. to around mid-January; the New England Journal of Medicine states that the first confirmed American case of the virus was Jan. 20 in Snohomish County, Washington. 

Yet health officials there are now stating that a review of two Washington patients' medical records from December, along with those patients having tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, indicate that the virus may have been in the country nearly a month earlier. 

The Seattle Times reports that one Snohomish County woman began suffering from typical coronavirus symptoms on Dec. 27, 2019. At the time she "didn’t even know what COVID-19 was," she told the newspaper. Officials were at that point still assuming that the virus was confined to China, where it began. 

The patient eventually improved. But a review of her case, along with her testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies, has county public health authorities assuming that the patient, along with one other Washington man who was sick around the same time, may in fact be the first coronavirus cases in the country, nearly four weeks earlier than original estimates. 

If true, those findings would likely complicate the epidemiological profile of the disease. Government officials in the United States cited the disease's rapid spread from mid-January onwards as justification for the sweeping lockdowns that began about eight weeks later. 

If the disease were here a month earlier than anticipated, however, it would likely send researchers and scientists scrambling to explain how it could have gone undetected for so long, particularly due to fears that the virus, if left unchecked, can overwhelm healthcare systems. 

Last month California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered health officials to re-examine deaths dating back to December out of similar concerns that the disease may have been there far earlier than authorities currently estimate.