Kansas grandmother, 78, who died on January 9, 2020 is named as United States' FIRST victim of COVID
The identity of a Kansas grandmother who is now the first recorded COVID-19 death in the United States has been revealed, after her cause of death was changed to be the virus on May. For over a year, it was believed that the first COVID-19 death in the country had been Patricia Dowd, a California woman who died from the virus on February 6, 2020. But an investigation by the Bay Area News Group revealed that five January 2020 deaths had recently been listed as COVID-19-related- the earliest was Lovell Brown, from Leavenworth, Kansas, who died at the age of 78 on January 9, 2020, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Her identity didn't become public due to patient privacy laws, and relatives of Brown were not alerted of the change on her death certificate. Brown's daughter, Peaches Foster, requested a copy of her mother's amended death certificate after she was contacted by The Mercury News through the Funeral Home that handled Brown's funer