When did covid 19 first arrive in USA?

[major burnout]

My relatives have family in China. They came to visit the bay area around November of '19. The whole family was soon sick and some went to the hospital. Diagnosis was 'viral pneumonia'.


My old Boss got sick in the central valley after his son in law traveled to a motorcycle factory in wuhan. That was October(?) '19.


Jan '20 I was sick in bed for 3 days with a bad flu. I had never had a flu like that. Had a dry unproductive cough for a month after. Worked through the pandemic without getting sick. Never got the vax.


I think Covid 19 was in USA for several months before the first confirmed case.

Did yall see the same?

[TrappedinCalifornia]

It's been discussed extensively on this site.

I went down for about 10 days in January 2020, one of, if not the longest bouts of 'flu' I'd ever had. It was right at the end of it or right after, that COVID was 'announced.'

We know it was here, but according to the CDC timeline, the U.S. didn't even start screening for it among foreign visitors until 17 January 2020. As a result, officially, the first case was not reported until 20 January. Bear in mind, however, that is confirmed case, not necessarily the first case. Given the incubation period, we know it was actually here before that. During the 'crisis,' there was some speculation that it was here as early as October or November 2019. However, without a lab test, we can't even 'confirm' someone has it today.

Where things get a bit hazy is that a set of blood samples taken from 13 December 2019 - 17 January 2020 showed positive results for COVID or, more accurately, they showed antibodies. Again, given the incubation period and timeline for antibodies, it can be claimed that it was here as early as November 2019. It's the reason many hold to the idea that it's 'just the flu.' We know that, biologically, it is a separate pathogen, though closely related. Given the symptoms, it could have been here quite awhile before anyone knew to look for it in lab tests. But, once again, there are those who will exclaim that if you don't test, then all you have is the flu.

We know that COVID was first 'recognized' in China in December 2019. However, we also know that China is likely to have had it long before that and that it was likely 'recognized' earlier than that as well; which includes some 'regional' papers in China noting it as early as November 2019. Technically, the earliest date which I've seen as an 'officially recognized' possibility is 4 November 2019 in China. Once again, given the incubation period, that likely puts it into October, particularly given the language used in that report... Based on this work, the researchers estimate that the median number of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 in China was less than one until November 4, 2019. Just bear in mind that wasn't claimed to have been a recognition that it existed. As the piece notes...

...In the new study, researchers used molecular clock evolutionary analyses to try to home in on when the first, or index, case of SARS-CoV-2 occurred. “Molecular clock” is a term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of genes to deduce when two or more life forms diverged — in this case, when the common ancestor of all variants of SARS-CoV-2 existed, estimated in this study to as early as mid-November 2019...

Personally, I stick with the October/November 2019 dating; but, acknowledge that it could have been here much sooner, remaining 'unrecognized,' at least officially. There is one study which claims...

...In their analysis, Roberts and colleagues reversed the method to determine the date when COVID-19 most likely first infected a human being.

While the first case of Covid-19 was officially identified in December 2019, they found it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 had spilled over into humans much earlier. Their analysis suggests that China had its first case of the respiratory disease back in early October or November 2019 before it spread globally by January 2020.

These findings support growing evidence that the pandemic arose sooner and grew more rapidly than officially accepted. A previous study identified significant changes in the number of hospital admissions and search engine traffic in Wuhan from August to October 2019, suggesting a possible earlier existence of Covid-19, the researchers wrote in the study...

Any claims more 'definitive' than that are just speculation until more information emerges; something even WHO notes as late as 30 December 2024...

...We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of COVID-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative. Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics...

[mshill]

My BIL was really sick in December 2019 just after he hosted some visitors from Asia at the plant where they produce airbags. He was sure it was covid after they announced.

[the_tunaman]

It was already here in the States in September… there’s a report around somewhere. I got the first variant on NYE 2019/2020 and it was the most ill I’ve ever been.

FCCCP!!!

[TrappedinCalifornia]

It was already here in the States in September… there’s a report around somewhere. I got the first variant on NYE 2019/2020 and it was the most ill I’ve ever been.

FCCCP!!!

Note the "May" in the title, as in it May Have Been Spreading... COVID-19 may have been spreading in US in September 2019

The coronavirus may have been silently spreading in the US in as early as September 2019, a preprint research paper suggested.

The paper, authored by researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, was released on ChinaXiv, a preprint platform developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Combined with mathematical model and artificial intelligence technology, qualitative and quantitative analysis of infectious diseases can reveal the epidemic law of infectious diseases and detect the origin and development trend of infectious diseases, the paper read.

The paper selected 12 representative regions in the US for analysis and found that the date of the first infection was mostly between August and October 2019, which is earlier than the official date of the first confirmed case in the US on January 20, 2020.

The experimental results indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic in the US started to spread around September 2019 with a high confidence probability...

It's one of the problems we've had all the way along. Someone comes up with a theory and then, rather than basing it on actual evidence, they apply a theoretical model, then declare their study to be 'evidence.' In fact, if you click the link in the quote and note the abstract, it states...

...The purpose of this paper is to infer the origin time of pandemic of COVID-19 based on a data and model hybrid driven method. We model the testing positive rate to fit its actual trend, and use the least squares estimation to obtain the optimal model parameters. Further, the kernel density estimation is applied to infer the origin time of pandemic given the specific confidence probability. By selecting 12 representative regions in the United States for analysis, the dates of the first infected case with 50% confidence probability are mostly between August and October 2019, which are earlier than the officially announced date of the first confirmed case in the United States on January 20, 2020....

Note the qualifiers... infer, model, estimation, probability, 50% confidence... Uh...

As I said, I'll stick with the October/November 2019 dating and leave open the possibility/probability that it was here earlier and unrecognized. In other words, we know, definitively, that the virus was in the U.S. before the first case was officially identified on 20 January 2020. How much earlier can be logically ascertained as being October/November 2019, which coincides with China's first, recognized case. As noted previously, some evidence provides an hint for the spread being as early as August; i.e., a combination of 'cough' and 'diarrhea' suggests...

[glassparman]

Me and my family think we all had it in Dec-Jan 2019. Funny how all this comes out years later.