[burger]

Not sure what you mean by that, but I don't think such a claim should be made. Those first two deaths were people who died at home. They probably had comorbidities and physicians and had received some medical attention before their deaths. Their physicians probably completed and signed their death certificates based on their known medical conditions and acute illness. Being under the care of a physician, and with known pre-existing conditions that could cause death, their deaths were not required to be reported to the county coroner. Or maybe they should have been reported to the coroner but weren't. Or they were reported to the coroner but there was nothing at the time that should have raised suspicion that they were related to the virus. There are many possible ways that the county realistically had no way of suspecting at the time that these were possible Covid-19 deaths. Now, the coroner is looking through all the old death certificates for possible investigation with autopsies, found these two, and is continuing to look for others.

Even if the dead peoples' doctors had strongly suspected covid-19 and had wanted testing, it would not have happened because CDC guidelines at the time only allowed people who had been in Wuhan to be tested, as noted here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/co...dates.html

I don't think that expanded testing earlier would have caught these specific cases.  But insufficient attention has been paid to how stupid the CDC's guidelines were.  At first it was only people who had been in China (or maybe just Wuhan?).  Then it was expanded to people directly exposed to China travellers.  I think it wasn't until March when tests were made available to everyone.  And at each step, CDC lagged in updating its policies until a number of cases popped up that did not meet the current criteria.  When California's first (at the time) community-acquired case was discovered in Sacramento, it was only after doctors at the hospital pleaded with CDC for 5 days to get a test.

When the all of the failings of the federal government are tallied, I hope the incredibly restrictive approach to testing gets the attention it deserves.

[burger]

Not sure what you mean by that, but I don't think such a claim should be made. Those first two deaths were people who died at home. They probably had comorbidities and physicians and had received some medical attention before their deaths. Their physicians probably completed and signed their death certificates based on their known medical conditions and acute illness. Being under the care of a physician, and with known pre-existing conditions that could cause death, their deaths were not required to be reported to the county coroner. Or maybe they should have been reported to the coroner but weren't. Or they were reported to the coroner but there was nothing at the time that should have raised suspicion that they were related to the virus. There are many possible ways that the county realistically had no way of suspecting at the time that these were possible Covid-19 deaths. Now, the coroner is looking through all the old death certificates for possible investigation with autopsies, found these two, and is continuing to look for others.

Even if the dead peoples' doctors had strongly suspected covid-19 and had wanted testing, it would not have happened because CDC guidelines at the time only allowed people who had been in Wuhan to be tested, as noted here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/co...dates.html

I don't think that expanded testing earlier would have caught these specific cases.  But insufficient attention has been paid to how stupid the CDC's guidelines were.  At first it was only people who had been in China (or maybe just Wuhan?).  Then it was expanded to people directly exposed to China travellers.  I think it wasn't until March when tests were made available to everyone.  And at each step, CDC lagged in updating its policies until a number of cases popped up that did not meet the current criteria.  When California's first (at the time) community-acquired case was discovered in Sacramento, it was only after doctors at the hospital pleaded with CDC for 5 days to get a test.

When the all of the failings of the federal government are tallied, I hope the incredibly restrictive approach to testing gets the attention it deserves.