U.S. Deaths Increased Tenfold This Month. What’s In Store For May?

The New York Times: What 5 Coronavirus Models Say The Next Month Will Look Like
In the last few weeks, we’ve all become a little more familiar with epidemiological models. These calculations, which make estimates about how many people are likely to get sick, need a hospital bed or die from coronavirus, are guiding public policy — and our expectations about what the future holds. But if you look at the models, they don’t really agree. (Bui, Katz, Parlapiano and Sanger-Katz, 4/22)

NPR: Trump Didn't See It Coming: Coronavirus Deaths Increased Tenfold This Month
A month ago, President Trump went on Fox and downplayed the potential lethality of the novel coronavirus and compared it to the seasonal flu."We've had horrible flus," Trump said March 24. "I mean, think of it: we average 36,000 people. Death. Death. I'm not talking about cases, I'm talking about death — 36,000 deaths a year. People die — 36 [thousand] — from the flu. But we've never closed down the country for the flu. So you say to yourself, 'What is this all about?'" (Montanaro and Moore, 4/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Mortality Rates Tell True Tale Of Coronavirus’s Effect
Governments considering reopening economies frozen by restrictions to limit the spread of the new coronavirus are struggling to determine how deadly it is. With tests for the virus still in short supply, many analysts are looking to the blunter measure of total deaths. By comparing mortality statistics for this year with those from the same period in past years, a rough measure of the pandemic’s impact emerges. In parts of the U.S. and Europe that have been hit hard, weekly fatalities from all causes are up by more than 25%, and in some places almost 80%. (Michaels, 4/22)

The New York Times: Santa Clara County: First Known U.S. Coronavirus Death Occurred On Feb. 6
Weeks before there was evidence that the coronavirus was spreading in U.S. communities, Patricia Dowd, a 57-year-old auditor at a Silicon Valley semiconductor manufacturer, developed flulike symptoms and abruptly died in her San Jose kitchen, triggering a search for what had killed her. Flu tests were negative. The coroner was baffled. It appeared that she had suffered a massive heart attack. But tissue samples from Ms. Dowd, who died on Feb. 6, have now shown that she was infected with the coronavirus — a startling discovery that has rewritten the timeline of the virus’s early spread in the United States and suggests that the optimistic assumptions that drove federal policies over the early weeks of the outbreak were misplaced. (Fuller, Baker, Hubler and Fink, 4/22)

The Wall Street Journal: First Coronavirus Deaths In U.S. Came Earlier Than Authorities Thought
“The one thing that you can take from this is how we’ve likely missed a number of cases,” Dr. Chiu said. He and other scientists still believe, however, that the virus was introduced to the U.S. in January. It isn’t known when the people who died in Santa Clara were infected. On Jan. 31, 10 days after the first confirmed U.S. infection surfaced, the Trump administration imposed restrictions on people traveling to the U.S. from the Chinese province where the coronavirus originated. (Elinson, Rana and Kamp, 4/22)

Los Angeles Times: First Known Coronavirus Fatality In The U.S. Was In Bay Area
A mystery clouded the death of Patricia Dowd in early February. The San Jose woman was a seemingly healthy 57-year-old who exercised routinely, watched her diet and took no medication. She had flu-like symptoms for a few days, then appeared to recover, a family member said. Then she was found dead Feb. 6, and the initial culprit appeared to be a heart attack. This week, authorities confirmed to Dowd’s family that she tested positive for the novel coronavirus, making her the first such documented fatality in the nation. (Hamilton and St. John, 4/22)

The Hill: California Governor Orders Autopsies Back To December To Find Out How Long Coronavirus Has Been In The State
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ordered medical examiners and coroners across the state to review autopsies dating back to December to “help guide a deeper understanding of when this pandemic really started to impact Californians.” “When this occurred is important forensic information, profoundly significant in understanding the epidemiology of this disease, all of those things are brought to bear with more clarity and light,” Newsom at a daily press briefing Wednesday. “Not only because of this specific announcement, but I imagine subsequent announcements that may be made by similar efforts all across the state of California.” (Moreno, 4/22)

The New York Times: Hidden Outbreaks Spread Through U.S. Cities Far Earlier Than Americans Knew, Estimates Say
By the time New York City confirmed its first case of the coronavirus on March 1, thousands of infections were already silently spreading through the city, a hidden explosion of a disease that many still viewed as a remote threat as the city awaited the first signs of spring. Hidden outbreaks were also spreading almost completely undetected in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, long before testing showed that each city had a major problem, according to a model of the spread of the disease by researchers at Northeastern University who shared their results with The New York Times. (Carey and Glanz, 4/23)

Boston Globe: Official Toll Of Massachusetts Coronavirus Deaths Likely Undercounted, A Review Shows 
The number of people killed by coronavirus in Massachusetts in the early days of the pandemic is likely much higher than reflected by the official death toll, according to a Globe analysis of preliminary state death records from March. Total deaths in Massachusetts soared by 11 percent last month over the March average for the last 20 years, a statistically significant increase that far exceeded the expected swings from year to year.(Ryan, Lazar and Datar, 4/22)

The New York Times: Covid-19 Arrived In Seattle. Where It Went From There Stunned The Scientists.
As the coronavirus outbreak consumed the city of Wuhan in China, new cases of the virus began to spread out like sparks flung from a fire. Some landed thousands of miles away. By the middle of January, one had popped up in Chicago, another one near Phoenix. Two others came down in the Los Angeles area. Thanks to a little luck and a lot of containment, those flashes of the virus appear to have been snuffed out before they had a chance to take hold. (Baker and Fink, 4/22)