Healthcare officials are being asked the same question quite often since the coronavirus outbreak began in New Jersey.
“If I was sick in January, could that have been the coronavirus?”
According to Dr. Shanu Agarwal of Cleveland, in an NBC interview, it might be. It might not be.
“It’s hard to really say at this point. It could possibly be that would have been really early in the time when we had the first U.S. cases,” Agrawal said. “As far as being immune to the disease, we’re just not certain. Down the road we could be able to check for coronavirus antibodies. At this point, that question is really unanswered.”
Here’s the known timeline of the coronavirus pandemic:
The first reported cases of coronavirus came out of Wuhan, China to the World Health Organization on December 31st. Those cases would have been contracted between December 12 and December 29 according to medical experts.
On January 5th, Chinese officials announced that the virus spreading in Wuhan Province was a new strain of virus and not SARS or MERS as had been thought earlier.
On January 7th, it was confirmed as a novel (new) virus.
In Mid-January, cases of coronavirus were found in Japan and Thailand.
The first confirmed case in the United States was on January 21st.
On January 31, President Trump announced that he would restrict travel from China.
In early February, passengers on cruise ships began becoming infected by the virus and the virus had become a new pandemic.
The window of opportunity is close. You may have gone to the doctor in early January for flu-like symptoms and tested negative for flu, but did you have coronavirus? Right now experts cannot agree on this.