I believe there may have been cases in the US a few months earlier than the virus was reported in China. The week before Thanksgiving I was deer hunting in KY, my guide had a really bad cough and upper respiratory infection that was kicking his azz. Before departing for my trip my wife had a moderately severe cough too, she did her best to socially distance herself from me so I wouldn't come down with a cough. About a week after returning from KY you guessed it I came down with a nasty cough that took longer to get rid of that usual. These examples lead me to believe that the virus was present in a weaker form prior to being recognized for being what it was.
It seems everywhere I look I see people wanting to be one of the first to have this virus. I guess we should all be thankful all those people who had corona Nov through Jan here in the US stayed out of the hospitals and didn't need any care other than fluids and rest. Who knows, maybe it was here for months and only affected younger, healthy people until it kicked things up a notch in Feb.
