California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) directed every county in his state on Wednesday to reexamine the autopsies they carried out as far back as December to determine whether COVID-19 had reached California even earlier than discovered on Tuesday.
During Newsom’s press briefing, the governor said that he ordered the counties to do so in order to reach a “deeper understanding of when this pandemic really started to impact Californians” after Santa Clara County public health officials announced on Tuesday that two people had died from the virus earlier than what was previously believed to be the first COVID-19 death in the U.S.
“When [the virus spread] occurred is important forensic information, profoundly significant in understanding the epidemiology of this disease, all of those things are brought to bear with more clarity and light,” Newsom told reporters.
“Not only because of this specific announcement, but I imagine subsequent announcements that may be made by similar efforts all across the state of California,” he continued.
According to the Santa Clara officials, the two individuals had died in their homes in early/mid February but had not been recorded as having the virus due to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) restrictive requirements for COVID-19 testing at the time.
“As the Medical Examiner-Coroner continues to carefully investigate deaths throughout the county, we anticipate additional deaths from COVID-19 will be identified,” they said.
Sadly, given the recent discovery of earlier COVID victims, this might be entirely warranted.
Geez…
Yes, we had, and still have, inadequate testing; horribly inadequate testing.
All due to the orange shitgibbon in the White House.
McConnell claims the Feds are bailing out blue states when red states are the ones getting more from feds that they put in! Seems like TX is about the only red state that isn’t literally in the red with the fed, and I 'm willing to make a small wager that could change really fast with gas prices falling into the well!
I’ve long felt the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 are actually low. Just factoring in that there is no uniform reporting process alone will likely raise the numbers. Then factor in the states in perpetual denial that are going to do everything possible to suppress the numbers and the actual death toll may well be, at minimum, 25% higher than is currently reported.
If that’s the case, please raise your hand if you’ll be surprised.
Cue Current Occupant for today’s presser: “I spoke with my best friend the Governor of California earlier today and he spent the entire call congratulating and thanking me for my Chinese ban. He said I should have done it much earlier because now it looks like those horrible people were coming into his state far earlier than we thought and bringing their plague with them. Terrible. Sad. He said they came in by the thousands to attend Nancy Pelosi’s rally in Chinatown, just like I had predicted they would. But nobody wrote about it when I said it because they hate me. They give me credit for NOTHING.”