PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Health Commissioner Dr. Tom Farley announced one year ago, on March 10, 2020, what he’d accepted as inevitable: "We have the first recognized case of the COVID-19 coronavirus in a person who resides in the city of Philadelphia."
It was Philly's first case, from a returning overseas traveler. Farley was still hopeful, then, that the virus could be contained with testing, contact tracing and quarantining — a hope that vanished in a week as cases doubled day after day.
"We are clearly in for a rough patch here," he said at one of the city's daily coronavirus press briefings.
That rough patch turned into a roller-coaster of a year: cases up, then down, then up again. The city topped 120,000 total cases — so far. Case counts are on a downward trend again, but that’s flattening out.
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Farley says there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel is long.
"This epidemic isn’t finished yet. It surprised us in the past, and it likely will again," he said.
While Philadelphia recorded its first case on March 10, 2020, New Jersey marked a different milestone.
Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver delivered the update: "Over the past 24 hours we have received four presumptive positive test results bringing our statewide total to 15."
And from state Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli: "We have our first mortality as a result of COVID-19."
The new, still mysterious virus had claimed the life of a 69-year-old man.
The death toll would grow to more than 21,000 today. While the state competed for supplies of ventilators and protective equipment, hospitalizations peaked at more than 8,200 in April.
With stay-at-home orders imposed and lifted, and public gathering limits slowly being eased, Gov. Phil Murphy points out there are now fewer than 2,000 COVID-19 patients in New Jersey hospitals.
“The crippling worst-case scenarios we feared for our hospitals, numbers that would have essentially broken our health care system, did not come to pass," Murphy said.
COVID: Then and Now is a KYW Newsradio original monthlong series looking back at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in Philadelphia. Reporters revisit the news from exactly one year ago and examine how protocols, restrictions and science have evolved since then. Check back weekdays in March for more.