Has Cornavirus Been Here… Since Last Year!?

A burst of detected flu illnesses occurred in Washinton state late last year. Could this be a leading indicator that Coronavirus/COVID-19 had a start before 2020?

Controversy erupted on Twitter (where all controversies erupt these days) concerning the timing around Coronavirus. Not related to the discussion on time we had the other day… now question is… when did Cornavirus get here to the United States?

I made first intimations of this some days ago as I’ve been tracking and analyzing the CDC seasonal flu surveillance data. It shows that the 2019–2020 seasonal influenza “burden” has been substantial. Then I ran the numbers on Washington state and… well, see for yourself:

That is a distinct anomaly. As we discussed previously — garbage-in / garbage-out — but I think something unique is going on here. Some have suggested that the Seattle Flu Study might be skewing the numbers. The CDC recommends comparing states to regions for best analysis and so:

HHS Region 10 includes AK, ID, OR, and WA

It appears a similar spike in estimated illnesses occurred in the 2017–2018 season. Let’s dive in by state: