1st U.S. coronavirus death was Feb. 6, not Feb. 28, California autopsies confirm

California's Santa Clara County announced Tuesday that autopsies had uncovered three early deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus, including a person who died at home on Feb. 6. Previously, the earliest recorded U.S. death from COVID-19 was Feb. 28 in Kirkland, Washington. Since deaths usually occur about month after exposure to the coronavirus, the implication is that COVID-19 was spreading in the Bay Area by early January. The coronavirus was first confirmed to have entered the U.S. on Jan. 21.

The autopsies also found the coronavirus in a second person who died at home on Feb. 17 and another resident who died March 6, three days earlier than the previously known first COVID-19 death in Santa Clara County. That March 9 death prompted the Silicon Valley area to ban public gatherings, and it was one of five Bay Area counties to institute the nation's first lockdown on March 16.

Santa Clara County said the county medical examiner-coroner's office conducted the autopsies as part of an effort "to carefully investigate deaths throughout the county" from a time when there was "very limited testing" through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the CDC's testing criteria included "only individuals with a known travel history and who sought medical care for specific symptoms." The medical examiner sent samples from the autopsies to the CDC, which confirmed the positive results for coronavirus on Tuesday. "We anticipate additional deaths from COVID-19 will be identified" as the autopsies continue, the county said.

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The head of Santa Clara County's government, Dr. Jeff Smith, said earlier this month that data from the CDC and local health officials suggested the coronavirus had arrived in California a lot earlier than "we first believed," most likely "back in December." It wasn't caught, he told the Los Angels Times, "because we were having a severe flu season," and the "symptoms are very much like the flu," especially with more mild COVID-19 cases.