Coronavirus Florida: Patients in Florida had symptoms as early as January, 2020

[superadmin]

The novel coronavirus infected as many as 171 people in Florida as long as two months before officials announced it had come to the state, a Palm Beach Post analysis of state records shows.

Patients reported symptoms of the deadly virus as early as Jan. 1, when the disease was thought to be limited to China, Department of Health records reveal. The records don’t say if patients reported those symptoms to the state until months later or if local offices of the health department actively investigated the illnesses at the time or a combination of both.

The state pulled the records off its website late Monday without explanation.

Florida did not announce its first two presumed coronavirus cases until March 1. At the time, cases were not considered confirmed until reviewed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


The CDC confirmed those first two cases, in Manatee and Hillsborough counties, on March 2. The state now has recorded more than 36,000 cases of the deadly virus.

But at the time of the first two cases, 171 people across 40 counties who would later test positive for COVID-19 were suffering from the disease, state records show. Three of those patients were in Palm Beach County, which officially didn’t record its first two coronavirus cases until March 13. The county now has more than 3,300 cases.

Until Monday evening, when the state confirmed a coronavirus case, it publicly posted data on each case, without identifying the patient. The publicly shared data included a date that represented one of two things: when the patient first started feeling symptoms or when the patient received a positive test result.

It is not clear from the data how the state treated the patients or even when they found out about their symptoms. No state officials could be reached for comment late Monday.

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