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Two residents of Snohomish County , Washington , who fall ill with COVID-19 - comparable symptom in December have now test confirming for antibody against the young coronavirus . The determination suggest the computer virus might have arrived in the U.S. originally than opinion .
One of these resident — discover only by her middle name Jean — enjoin she fell ill shortly after Christmas with a ironical cough , feverishness and body aches , accord toThe Seattle Times . Her illness eventually required two trip-up to the doctor along with chest X - rays and a prescription for an inhaled medication . At the metre , COVID-19 had not been formally discover or named as a disease entity . But this month , Jean receive newsworthiness from her medico that a line of descent trial picture she was incontrovertible forCOVID-19 antibodies , The Seattle Times reported .
about a month after , on Jan. 21 , the first known lawsuit ofCOVID-19 in the U.S.would be reported in a Snohomish County human beings who had recently travel to Wuhan , China .
Jean ’s test result is n’t classical proof that she had COVID-19 in December , because it does n’t show when she was infected . But local health functionary who brush up the results say that Jean is one of two people in the county found to quiz positive for coronavirus antibody after falling ill with a COVID-19 - like sickness in December .
" They are being consider ' probable ' [ typesetter’s case ] , " Heather Thomas , a Snohomish Health District spokeswoman , told The Seattle Times on Thursday ( May 14 ) .
However on Friday ( May 15 ) , Dr. Chris Spitters , the district ’s wellness officer , clarified that the Scripture " probable " in this public wellness context does n’t mean the same matter as it would in mundane life . In this case , public wellness official have to put cases into " certain buckets " to classify them , but those classification may not match what they actually had , Spitters say in aCOVID-19 briefing .
What ’s more , Spitters punctuate that " the symptom that those [ two ] soul report … overlap greatly with other respiratory tract infections , " and it ’s possible they had something else . " There was no testing of those infections that pass off at the time , so it ’s possible and frankly , I recollect , more potential that they had a non - COVID respiratory viral illness in December and later had an asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic COVID contagion , " he said . ( In this scenario , it would be that late infection that was n’t obvious that lend the person with COVID-19 antibodies . )
Still , experts say it ’s potential COVID-19 did hail to the U.S. prior to the first report subject in mid - January . In France , doctors latterly found genetic material from COVID-19 in sample accept from a patient treated in December , Live Science previously report .
" The amount of breeze traveling into and out of Wuhan was enormous , probably K and thousands of people , " Dr. Art Reingold , a public health epidemiologist at the University of California at Berkeley , told The Seattle Times . " It follows that there [ were ] likely multiple launching around the human race , quite possibly in December . " Rather than a single " patient zero , " the disease was likely introduce into the country multiple times , he said .
Spitters acknowledged that , saying " I call up it ’s sane to assume , given story like the ones that we ’ve had and others around the area , that introduction may have occurred prior to mid - January . " However , " while that ’s of scientific and academic interest , it does n’t really switch where we sit down today or where we have to move in front in the future . "
Originally publish onLive Science .
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