A 57-year-old woman had died of COVID-19 on Feb. 6, far earlier than any other reported cases in the United States, said Sara Cody, the health officer in Santa Clara County, California. It was previously thought that the first U.S. death from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, was in Washington state on Feb. 29. The California woman’s death and two other early cases – a 69-year-old man who died Feb. 17 and a 70-year-old man who died March 6 – were confirmed to have been COVID-19 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after it tested tissue samples. Because the region was undergoing a bad flu season at the time, many cases may have been misclassified as influenza.
— source dailymaverick.co.za | 22 Apr 2020