CHICAGO -- In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms -- dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their
CHICAGO — In January, a mystery illness swept through a call center in a skyscraper on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Close to 30 people in one department alone had symptoms — dry, deep coughs and fevers they could not shake. When they gradually returned to work after taking sick days, they sat in their cubicles looking wan and tired.
The retroactive search is happening on many levels. People who had suffered dreadful bouts with flulike illnesses are now wondering whether it had been the coronavirus. Doctors are thinking back to unexplained cases. Medical examiners are poring over their records looking for possible misdiagnosed deaths. And local politicians are demanding investigations.
Story continuesSome people have spent part of their days sheltering at home going over the details of their bouts with what could have been the coronavirus. In Rothschild, Wisconsin, Tommie Swenson and his girlfriend, Tammy Swikert, keep thinking of the illness they contracted during the winter that spread widely through their village of 5,000 people.
But the likelihood that you are one of them varies based on where you live. Blood tests that can detect coronavirus antibodies may have high false positive rates when exposure to the virus in a given population is relatively low. It was also a bad year for seasonal influenza, so if you felt lousy in January or February, there is a decent chance you had the flu.
In hard-hit New York City, about 21% of supermarket customers who were tested for coronavirus antibodies tested positive, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. If that rate proved consistent across the city, that would mean that about 1.7 million people — or 12 times the number of now confirmed cases — have had it.
Deaths from January and February are also getting new scrutiny after an announcement this week in Santa Clara County, California, that a woman who died Feb. 6 had been found to have the coronavirus. Her death occurred weeks earlier than what had previously been thought to be the first death in the United States from the virus.
Dr. Jeffrey Smith, the Santa Clara County executive and a medical doctor, said his wife, also a doctor, reported being puzzled by patients she was seeing in the Bay Area in December. Dave Cortese, a member of the board of supervisors of Santa Clara County, has requested a full list of deaths in the county from January to March, a period in which he says the county experienced more deaths than the year earlier.
April Slone, Carrier’s sister, said that he had long grappled with significant health issues but that doctors could not explain his condition. He tested negative for the flu.Then Slone read about a link between the coronavirus and kidney problems, an issue Carrier had begun experiencing.
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