Colorado Doctor: Coronavirus 'Won't Throw Us Any More Curveballs'

DENVER (CBS4) - As evidence begins to grow that COVID-19 was in Colorado before Early February, health experts say that's not changing how they're treating, or how society's spring blossom should occur. On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis began his presentation saying the state now believes coronavirus was present before the first positive test.

"It's not surprising at all. We knew that there was circulating virus in Washington state prior to when we thought the initial case, the patient zero there, was identified," said Dr. John Hammer, the Chairman of Medicine and an Infectious Disease Specialist at Rose Medical Center. "I would suspect there was virus circulating here as well to a low level. We thought that was going to be the case."

Hammer says new cases are still occurring but the number of them are going down and hospitals are better equipped to handle new cases. He also dedicates a significant amount of time continuing to learn about the virus.

"It has been a learning experience that has been fascinating and exhausting really over the course of the past several months. It's essentially a fire hose of information that is coming out about this virus. It's behaving in many ways we never expected," he said. "It changes the way we manage patients and changes the ways we approach patients and approach diagnosis. We are getting a better grasp on this and it won't throw us any more curve balls in terms of how patients present and behave clinically."

Early cases were likely diagnosed as the flu or pneumonia. It's not believed that early, undetected cases show the virus takes longer to become symptomatic.

"If people did develop symptoms it was likely just inscribed as influenza and not COVID-19. So now, certainly we have to have our ears up. People that do develop respiratory illness should be concerned they have a COVID infection and self-isolate accordingly," Hammer said.