Early deaths leaving survivors uncertain
Flu or COVID19? Some people died of unclear causes
Kembrya Smith was stunned when she got the phone call.
Her childhood sweetheart, Xavier Randle, was dead.
The 52yearold truck driver from Mississippi was on a delivery in Southern California with what he thought was the flu. He was coughing up blood and struggling to breathe when the ambulance arrived.
He died on Feb. 3, a ventilator down his throat and a protective plastic dome covering his head, Smith said. The death certificate cited the cause of death as viral pneumonia.
Smith, who lives in San Leandro, and Randle’s family back in his home state believe he died from coronavirus.
There have been hints that the virus may have been circulating in the Bay Area weeks before the outbreak took off in early March, but due to a lack of testing there was no way to know for sure. The discovery of three unrelated athome deaths from COVID19 in Santa Clara County — and in particular, one death in the first
“I had no idea about COVID19 at the time. It wasn’t like it was something big at the time.”
Kembrya Smith, who lost her longtime friend before coronavirus was widely known in U.S.
week of February — provide that proof.
The 57yearold woman who died Feb. 6 very likely was infected in early or midJanuary. That has health officials and families across the state and country grappling with whether their patients, loved ones or they themselves fell ill or died from the virus far earlier than anyone thought possible.
“I had no idea about COVID19 at the time,” Smith said of her longtime friend. “It wasn’t like it was something big at the time.”
Randle was never tested for the virus, as far as his family members know, but they believe he was among the first in the country to die from it, but they will likely never get confirmation.
“They may never know,” Smith said. “He’s already been buried.”
It’s a nagging question for the millions of California residents. Were those flu symptoms — dry cough, fever, chills — as far back as December actually the coronavirus?
Most doctors and infectious disease experts say that despite the new evidence, it’s still unlikely that the virus was spreading widely earlier this year, and people who were sick probably did not have COVID19. Even during a normal flu season, there are dozens of viruses and bacteria — not just influenza — that can cause respiratory disease.
Until there is widespread antibody testing, the answer to whether or not someone had the coronavirus earlier this year is: Probably not, but maybe, experts say.
“We had a lot of influenza circulating,” said Dr. Jeffrey Silvers, medical director of infectious disease at Sutter Health in the Bay Area. “The question is, did we also have the COVID19 virus? And my answer is, I think we did, and we just didn’t have testing available.”
Dr. Andra Blomkalns, chair of the Stanford Department of Emergency Medicine, said she recalled that in February a lot of patients were coming in with flu symptoms but testing negative for the influenza. She and other doctors wondered at the time if they could have COVID19, but testing criteria were extremely narrow then — only people with recent overseas travel or close contact with a known case of the virus could be tested.
“And these people didn’t even come close to meeting any criteria for coronavirus testing. The tests were in such short supply,” Blomkalns said.
That said, she doesn’t believe the virus was widespread back then.
The early cases in Santa Clara County “were probably the first people,” Blomkalns said. “It had to start with some (first) cases.”
Based on those deaths, however, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on county coroners to review cases back to December to better understand when the pandemic hit California.
Gabriel Heib, 49, died on Dec. 11 at his home in Sonoma County. He had pneumonia, but his wife, a nurse, just assumed he’d recover, said Heib’s cousin, Alex O’Brien. He was home with his kids, resting, she said.
“And then a few hours later, they just found him dead in the room,” O’Brien said. “There’s no reason he should have died of pneumonia.”
A few weeks later, Heib’s father, who lived on the family farm too, died as well.
The family can’t help but wonder what happened, O’Brien said.
Heib sold Protea flowers at the Grand Lake Farmers’ Market, so he was often in the Bay Area. Did he catch the coronavirus there?
“He was like the healthiest person in the world,” O’Brien said.
While many families of loved ones lost would like to know to have closure, those still living feel like knowing whether their illness was the coronavirus would offer some sense of relief and the prospect of immunity.
But those who think they might have had the virus should not assume they are now immune, Blomkalns said. No one knows if previous infection provides immunity, or if it does, how long it lasts.
“I don’t feel like people need to worry about it. If they had it, they had it,” she said. “People shouldn’t worry if they thought they had it and they weren’t tested. If they recovered, that’s great news. But they shouldn’t consider themselves immune.”
Tiffany Vogt, 50, still just wants to know. She believes she might have been exposed as early as Thanksgiving, when she sat next to an international airline pilot at the dinner table. He was sick at the time, she said.
Though the first cases of the coronavirus weren’t reported until late December in China, many infectious disease experts now believe it could have started spreading there in November. That has not yet been proven.
By Dec. 5, Vogt, who lives in Aromas, Monterey County, was so sick with a sore throat, night sweats, a fever, labored breathing and body aches so bad she could barely move, that she went to the hospital. She too tested negative for flu and strep.
“We’d been thinking about it, but we were sick too soon,” she said. But with the Santa Clara cases confirming the virus was in California at least by January, the question is really when did it actually get here, Vogt said. “I really want to know.” Jill Tucker and Erin Allday are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@ sfchronicle.com, eallday@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker, @erinallday