Pandemic started in US before 2020, we just didn't know it

[Missouriwatcher]

CDC website updated Jan 4, 2021:

The CDC publishes provisional death counts involving COVID-19. Beginning the week 12/29/2019-01/2/20 it shows 5 COVID-19 deaths occurring in states: CT, SC, IL and LA. The following week another 5 deaths involving COVID-19 in states: CT, NJ, AR and KS. The third week 3 deaths in states: CA, IL and TN. Followed by 2 deaths in WI and VA and week ending 02/01/20 a death in NV. (Possibly indicating that COVID-19 began somewhere other than west coast, based on where deaths occurred.)

Clearly, COVID-19 was traveling all over the US by Jan 2020 to have, at this point, 16 deaths in the month of Jan 2020; deaths coast to coast.

Feb 2020: 15 deaths total in states: CA, LA, MA, MI, NY, PA, TX, WA

CDC has not released information on deaths, if any, from COVID-19 occurring earlier than Dec. 29, 2019.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm

NOTE: This information was extrapolated by looking at the deaths during each week in Jan 2020 from COVID-19, then looking at individual states' reports. When a report was blank, another page indicates that information missing in blank can indicate from 1-9 deaths. Consequently, some of the states listed above had more than one death. The current web page listed above is updated daily.


American Red Cross study (Dec 1, 2020):

...The findings of this study indicate that that it is possible the virus that causes COVID-19 may have been present in California, Oregon, and Washington as early as Dec. 13-16, 2019, and in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin as early as Dec. 30, 2019 - Jan. 17, 2020. Although researchers at the CDC found antibodies that reacted to the virus in blood donations from all nine states that were part of this study, the percentage of blood samples with these antibodies was very low—indicating the virus was not widespread...
https://www.redcross.org/about-us/ne...in-the-us.html

[Missouriwatcher]

The ILI Network showed :
Week 44 (2019): ILI activity levels: LA (VERY HIGH); Geographic spread: WIDESPREAD: MD, LA
Week 45 (2019): ILI activity levels: LA (VERY HIGH); Geographic spread: WIDESPREAD: MD, LA, CA
Week 46 (2019): ILI activity levels: LA (VERY HIGHEST); Geographic spread: WIDESPREAD: MA, SC, AL, LA, NV, CA
Week 47 (2019): ILI activity levels: LA (VERY HIGH); Geographic spread: WIDESPREAD: MA, SC, TN, AL, LA, TX, NM, NV, CA, AK
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/main.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2019-2020/Week01.htm

As this activity was assumed to be due to influenza or pneumonia, one cannot rule out that COVID-19 could have been a factor. Testing available past samples might clear this assumption, for it appears that COVID-19 was established in Nov and Dec of 2019 in the United States, enough to produce deaths from coast to coast by the end of Jan 2020.

A current PBS Frontline estimates that Wuhan, China had 80,000 cases near the end of Jan 2020 (far below what they had reported). A study of satellite traffic, at Wuhan's five largest hospitals, suggests that they may have been experiencing difficulty with COVID-19 as early as Aug 2019.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/f...covid-secrets/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52975934

Wastewater samples:

Santa Catalina, Brazil:
...Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in Brazil since late November 2019...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....26.20140731v1


Northern Italy: (Milan and Turin)
...In conclusion, our study on archival samples collected before the first autochthonous case was detected in Italy confirms that SARS-COV-2 was already circulating after mid-December 2019...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...40,the%20newly %20developed%20real%2Dtime


SARS-CoV-2 detected in waste waters in Barcelona on March 12, 2019
https://www.ub.edu/web/ub/en/menu_ei...20/06/042.html

France:
doctors at a Paris hospital discovered that patients they'd treated for pneumonia on December 27, 2019,had been sick with COVID-19.

...government records show China's first coronavirus case happened on November 17, 2019, according to an investigation by the South China Morning Post.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coro...tbreak-2020-12

[Missouriwatcher]

UPDATE: Apr 7, 2021:

Week one (ending Jan4, 2020): IL listed as COVID-19 related deaths (total 1)
Week two: zero
Week three: CA, IL and TN (total 3)
Week four: WI, VA (total 2)
Week five: zero
Week six: CA, NY (total 2)
Week seven: zero
Week eight: CA, LA,MA, NC, NY (total 5)
Week nine: AL, LA, MI, TX and WA (total 9)
Total deaths (COVID) Jan 2020: 6
Total deaths (COVID) Feb 2020: 16

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm

[Missouriwatcher]

By Jan 2020 there were 17,908 pneumonia (7 associated with COVID-19) and 2,122 influenza deaths. From 2014-2019, the average Jan deaths of pneumonia and influenza combined was around 9,000. This indicates that around 11,000 more deaths from pneumonia and influenza occurred in Jan 2020 and might implicate COVID-19 as a contributing factor.

As indicated above, only 7 have been associated with COVID-19 in Jan 2020. Clearly, something was occurring prior to Jan 2020 to incur this number of excess deaths. Yet, in Dec and Nov of 2019 only 4,776 and 3,502 deaths, respectively, were from pneumonia and influenza.

Assuming median deaths occur 13 days upon symptoms, and there were, to date, three deaths that had occurred by Jan 4, 2020, then the Pandemic was underway in Dec 2019 in the United States.

Additionally, by mid-Jan 2020, COVID-19 related deaths had occurred from New Jersey to California to Illinois to Oklahoma. It had a foothold in Dec 2019 and we didn't know it.

Deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and pneumonia reported to NCHS by place of death, age, state, and HHS Region.
https://data.cdc.gov/dataset/NVSS-Pr...eath/4va6-ph5s

As of Jan 27, 2021, the CDC lists the deaths most frequent comorbidity with COVID-19: 45.1% pneumonia/influenza

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm

As of Feb 23, 2021, reporting hospitals list patients with pneumonia and COVID-19 (Mar 18, 2020 - Oct 2020) from 50-85%
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/nhc...-illnesses.htm

[Missouriwatcher]

Considering how coronavirus variant B117 (501Y) can go undetected, it is plausible that COVID-19 origins go back several months into 2019 (in the United States) and even farther in other parts of the world. Studying frozen blood samples may help answer the question of just how long.

According to the WSJ, organizations including the American Red Cross and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are testing old blood specimens for the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. They also seek collections from Wuhan before Dec. 2019, as well as other parts of China...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/origin-...es-11617874200

According to UT NEWS: A new study suggests coronavirus variant B117 (501Y) went undetected in 15 countries for months before it was discovered. This variant was unknowingly spreading for months in the United States by October 2020, according to a new study from researchers with The University of Texas at Austin COVID Modeling Consortium...
https://news.utexas.edu/2021/04/01/u...its-discovery/


UPDATE: Feb 3, 2022
Deaths associated with COVID-19 in the United States by state at the beginning 2 months of 2020

Week one (ending Jan4, 2020): No death associated with covid-19
Week two: KS (total 1)
Week two: CA and OK (total 2)
Week four: AL and WI (total 2)
Week five: no deaths associated with covid-19
Week six: CA, MS and NY (total 4)
Week seven: GA, MI and MS (total 5)
Week eight: CA, LA,MA, NC and NY (total 6)
Week nine: AL, LA, MI, TX and WA (total 9)

Total US deaths (COVID) in Jan 2020: 5
Total US deaths (COVID) in Feb 2020: 24

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm

[Missouriwatcher]

In a recently published NIH report, findings of 24,000 stored blood samples taken in early 2020 suggest that the virus was spreading in Dec 2019 in the United States. (Samples were taken in Illinois, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin)

In this study, the first positive samples came from participants in Illinois and Massachusetts on Jan. 7 and 8, 2020, respectively, suggesting that the virus was present in those states in late December.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news...-infections-us

In the Red Cross study (see previous post), COVID-19 may have been present in California, Oregon, and Washington as early as Dec. 13-16, 2019, and in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin as early as Dec. 30, 2019 - Jan. 17, 2020.

To date, the first deaths that have been published occurred in Kansas during the week of Jan 5-11, 2020 (see previous post) and in the following week (Jan 12-18, 2020) deaths were in California and Oklahoma.

This information would tend to indicate that the virus was circulating nationwide in December 2019 and introduced even before that in the United States.

[Pathfinder]

Exclusive: First U.S. COVID deaths came earlier — and in different places — than previously thought
...

By HARRIET BLAIR ROWAN | hrowan@bayareanewsgroup.com and EMILY DERUY | ederuy@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: August 22, 2021 at 5:50 a.m. | UPDATED: August 23, 2021 at 6:29 a.m.

In a significant twist that could reshape our understanding of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, death records now indicate the first COVID-related deaths in California and across the country occurred in January 2020, weeks earlier than originally thought and before officials knew the virus was circulating here.

A half dozen death certificates from that month in six different states — California, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — have been quietly amended to list COVID-19 as a contributing factor, suggesting the virus’s deadly path quickly reached far beyond coastal regions that were the country’s early known hotspots.

Up until now, the Feb. 6, 2020, death of San Jose’s Patricia Dowd had been considered the country’s first coronavirus fatality, although where and how she was infected remains unknown.
...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/22/exclusive-first-u-s-covid-deaths-came-earlier-and-in-different-places-than-previously-thought/

[sharon sanders]

Please see:

China - Original COVID-19 coronavirus news thread: weeks 1 - 4 (December 30, 2019 - January 25, 2020)

China - COVID-19 - 1st known case traces back to November 2019 - FluTrackers documentation of possible early 2019 outbreak trend

[Emily]

COVID-like illness with SARS-CoV-1/2 nucleocapsid found in laboratory rats at the University of Pittsburgh in November 2019.