Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, he and his wife both ill while traveling home from Asia in January, said the Center for Disease Control turned down their request for coronavirus testing.
In an interview with a San Francisco radio station Wednesday, Wozniak appeared to better explain a puzzling Twitter post from Monday, where he described he and wife as “patient zero in the U.S.”
Many wondered whether he was joking, as he often does on Twitter. The matter seemed to lose steam when USA Today reported Janet Wozniak being diagnosed with a sinus infection.
But Woz told KCBS radio that maybe they “slipped through the cracks” in the days before the coronavirus was being widely reported.
“We certainly would have been tested and quarantined if we came back today,” said Woz, whose wife and other passengers on their flight were coughing. At one point, Janet Wozniak coughed up blood, he told KCBS. “But we came back on Jan. 4. There was no recognition of it then.”
Wozniak said medical tests were inconclusive. “All they could say was that she didn’t have anything American,” he said. “She had a virus, but they didn’t know what.”
Woz said he reached out to the CDC as news of a fast-spreading outbreak was being reported. He described the agency’s response as “boilerplate” and would not allow them to be tested.
Cult of Mac reached out to the CDC press office for comment. We will update the story if the CDC responds.
“We’d love to get tested,” he said. “Did we have coronavirus or did we just have some other virulent flue, the worst in our life?”
Wozniak has canceled upcoming speaking engagements in France and South Korea.
Source: KCBS
