And in California. One patient died of CoVID-19 in California as early as 6 February 2020, though that only came to light months later. The patient had no recent travel history, so there was community spread in California in January 2020, at the latest.
I referred to the NY outbreak as the first "major outbreak" in the US, because it was much larger than the outbreaks in Seattle and California.
However, the fact that there were these early cases in the US just underscores how ineffective a policy of closing borders and then failing to test is (or worse yet, only banning travel from some countries and then failing to test). Even China, which has extremely strict travel restrictions (it takes multiple rounds of PCR testing and two weeks of quarantine to get into the country), has occasional imported cases. Without constant surveillance, those few cases would quickly develop into a full-blown outbreak.
I referred to the NY outbreak as the first "major outbreak" in the US, because it was much larger than the outbreaks in Seattle and California.
However, the fact that there were these early cases in the US just underscores how ineffective a policy of closing borders and then failing to test is (or worse yet, only banning travel from some countries and then failing to test). Even China, which has extremely strict travel restrictions (it takes multiple rounds of PCR testing and two weeks of quarantine to get into the country), has occasional imported cases. Without constant surveillance, those few cases would quickly develop into a full-blown outbreak.