Officials in Santa Clara County, California, announced last night that at least two deaths in early February can now be attributed to COVID-19.Until now, the first US fatality from the pandemic coronavirus was assumed to be in the Seattle area on Feb 28, but postmortem testing on deaths from Feb 6 and Feb 17 now confirm that COVID-19 was spreading in the San Francisco Bay area weeks earlier than previously thought.Both fatalities in Santa Clara County had no travel history, and likely acquired COVID-19 through community spread.
Initially, Santa Clara officials had marked the first death from COVID-19 in their county on Mar 9, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.In February, Santa Clara County became the first site of confirmed community