Officials: State’s first COVID death was in Snohomish County

A new glimpse into Washington’s earliest COVID deaths — and why we may never have a complete record.

Logo for news use featuring Snohomish County, Washington. 220118

By Elise Takahama / The Seattle Times

SEATTLE — On the Saturday afternoon of Feb. 29, 2020, reporters joined local and state health officials, packing into a room for a news conference in downtown Seattle. Details were shared about what appeared to be the first COVID-19 death in the nation just the day before.

It was a man in his 50s and a patient at EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland. He had underlying health conditions — and no recent travel history.

“What we’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Francis Riedo, EvergreenHealth’s medical director of infectious disease, said at the time.

But we now know the King County man wasn’t the first in Washington — or in the nation — to die of COVID after all.

In a recent review of the state’s earliest COVID deaths, the state Department of Health has confirmed at least four other Washingtonians died from COVID complications before or on Feb. 28, 2020. Three were from long-term care facility Life Care Center of Kirkland, the site of the first known coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., while DOH now believes the first person to die in the state was actually a Snohomish County woman in her 30s.

And the first recorded death in the country has since been attributed to Lovell “Cookie” Brown, a 78-year-old Kansas woman who died on Jan. 9, 2020, according to The Mercury News.

Bob Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a recent interview that it has not been uncommon for authorities to have missed some of the country’s early COVID deaths.

“We have seen quite a few death certificates that were amended with COVID-19 as the cause, especially those that occurred early in the pandemic,” Anderson said. “We probably underestimated them during that part of the pandemic because doctors often didn’t know what they were looking at and didn’t have a lot of experience with COVID-19.”

In Washington, state epidemiologists and the King County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed John Edward Parker, a man in his 50s, and Marion Krueger, a woman in her 80s, died on Feb. 26, 2020. Philip Walter Rodenberg, a man in his 80s, died two days later.

And the state’s first recorded COVID death occurred on Feb. 24, 2020 — four days before the state’s presumed first death. The woman, from Snohomish, had a travel history and underlying health conditions, said Kari Bray, spokesperson for Snohomish County’s public health department.

But little other information is publicly available about her, as her death wasn’t investigated by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Many (natural) deaths are not reported to us and it looks like this may be one,” Nicole Daugherty, the office’s operations manager, wrote in an email.

In early 2020, physicians and medical examiners who saw that viral pneumonia was a person’s cause of death might not have been able to detect whether the coronavirus had caused the illness, Anderson said. As the virus spread and affected people’s bodies in different ways, it became even more difficult to identify as a cause of death, he said.

Plus, he noted, testing wasn’t widespread at that point, so many COVID decedents were tested after they died.

While a few missed deaths likely won’t make a big difference from a public health standpoint, he said, it’s important to keep a record as accurate as possible.

“It’s important for people who died to have their cause of death specified correctly,” Anderson said. “… That gives the family closure, but then also corrects the permanent record. It’s important for tracking events over time.”

Since then, the state and country have developed much stronger disease surveillance systems to track COVID cases and deaths — though it’s likely there will never be a completely accurate pandemic death record, Anderson said.

In the case of the Snohomish woman, Dr. Chris Spitters, Snohomish County’s health officer, said she tested positive for the virus after she died. It wasn’t until May 2020, three months later, that a lab detected SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, in a piece of her lung tissue.

“It certainly doesn’t change our current public health and disease control perspective on monitoring and guiding our way through the pandemic,” Spitters said. “More than anything, it just speaks to the reality of what it’s like to recognize a problem, then set up a surveillance system to detect the various outcomes.”

At the time, local health departments were tracking individual cases, hospitalizations and deaths, then reporting them to DOH.

Now, the process is more streamlined.

DOH compares new death certificate entries to newly positive COVID cases, then looks for matches and causes of death, Spitters said. If the cause of death and the COVID case line up, DOH will identify the death as “COVID-associated,” he said.

There are some gray areas.

If a person tests positive for COVID but has also been diagnosed with cancer or another disease, their exact cause of death might be more difficult to pin down.

In those situations, local health departments can request death information from hospitals or the medical examiner’s office to better understand the circumstances under which a person died, Spitters said.

“Surveillance systems for any condition are not perfect,” he said. “They’re set up to try and detect general trends. … COVID is just another example of that.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Customers enter and exit the Costco on Dec. 2, 2022, in Lake Stevens. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Costco stores could be impacted by looming truck driver strike threat

Truck drivers who deliver groceries and produce to Costco warehouses… Continue reading

Two Washington State ferries pass along the route between Mukilteo and Clinton as scuba divers swim near the shore Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023, in Mukilteo, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ferry system increases ridership by a half million in 2024

Edmonds-Kingston route remains second-busiest route in the system.

Fernando Espinoza salts the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue South on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Think this is cold, Snohomish County? Wait until Tuesday

Tuesday could bring dangerous wind chill during the day and an overnight low of 19 degrees

The Washington State Department of Licensing office is seen in 2018 in Seattle. (Sue Misao / The Herald)
Drivers licensing offices to close Feb. 14-17

Online services are also not available Feb. 10-17. The Washington State Department of Licensing said the move is necessary to upgrade software.

Robin Cain with 50 of her marathon medals hanging on a display board she made with her father on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Running a marathon is hard. She ran one in every state.

Robin Cain, of Lake Stevens, is one of only a few thousand people to ever achieve the feat.

People line up to grab food at the Everett Recovery Cafe on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Coffee, meals and compassion are free at the Everett Recovery Cafe

The free, membership-based day center offers free coffee and meals and more importantly, camaraderie and recovery support.

Devani Padron, left, Daisy Ramos perform during dance class at Mari's Place Monday afternoon in Everett on July 13, 2016. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
Mari’s Place helps children build confidence and design a better future

The Everett-based nonprofit offers free and low-cost classes in art, music, theater and dance for children ages 5 to 14.

The Everett Wastewater Treatment Plant along the Snohomish River on Thursday, June 16, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Everett water, sewer rates could jump 43% by 2028

The rate hikes would pay for improvements to the city’s sewer infrastructure.

The bond funded new track and field at Northshore Middle School on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024 in Bothell, Washington. (Courtesy of Northshore School District)
Northshore School District bond improvements underway

The $425 million bond is funding new track and field complexes, playgrounds and phase one of two school replacements.

Pharmacist Nisha Mathew prepares a Pfizer COVID booster shot for a patient at Bartell Drugs on Broadway on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Everett lawmakers back universal health care bill, introduced in Olympia

Proponents say providing health care for all is a “fundamental human right.” Opponents worry about the cost of implementing it.

Outside of the updated section of Lake Stevens High School on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 in Lake Stevens, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lake Stevens, Arlington school measures on Feb. 11 ballot

A bond in Lake Stevens and a levy in Arlington would be used to build new schools.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.