Suspicions that the coronavirus was already taking a toll on the American population were realized this week when new autopsies in California revealed that several deaths had occurred weeks earlier than the first known case. The discovery has opened up a flurry of new suspicious cases among families still in mourning.
Kevin Adler’s family is one of those families still mourning their loved one.
Adler was understandably heartbroken when he lost his 97-year old grandfather to a respiratory illness, or so they believed at the time.
“Pretty quickly, pretty abruptly, he developed this respiratory infection and declined very quickly. I mean, I didn’t have any heads up that he was sick or that he was ailing beyond just his old age. And then (we) got the call on February 2 that he had passed away,” Adler said.
What the family now suspects is that Adler's elderly grandfather, a World War II veteran, was likely among those who died of COVID-19 in the Northern California area of Santa Clara County, weeks or months before what was once thought.
The evidence is anecdotal but mounting. Two residents at Jason Adler’s four-person convalescent died that week of similar symptoms, and a third got sick but survived. Many of the home’s staff got extremely ill, as did Kevin Adler's uncle, who was one of the only visitors during this time period.
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Then, the uncle’s entire family got sick at their homes. The one common denominator was that, within seven days, all these people had the classic COVID-19 symptoms.
“It indicates to me that the coronavirus was very much present in the area at the time. And there's probably 100 more stories just like mine and my family's that were happening,” Kevin Adler said.
In his grief, Kevin Adler is at the epicenter of another coronavirus story. He is CEO of Miracle Messages, which refuses to watch as the virus rips through homeless shelters and communities without trying to help.
“We help people on the streets; record video, audio and text messages to (get to) family members and friends; and then have a network of volunteer digital detectives that help locate the loved ones, deliver the message, reunite them," he said.
During the pandemic, Miracle Messages has also created an offshoot called Miracle Friends, which is a virtual buddy system that pairs up homeless individuals with volunteers for quick phone check-ins at hotels. It’s a compassionate endeavor when so many are in grief.
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COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March. The first case confirmed in the U.S. was in mid-January and the first case confirmed in San Antonio was in mid-February.
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