CES might have helped spread COVID

UPDATE: April 24, 2020, 3:49 p.m. EDT This story has been updated to reflect new information confirmed by the Consumer Technology Association.

This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas might have been a catalyst in helping to spread the coronavirus throughout the U.S. And, according to APM Reports, an investigative news publication, there's new evidence to prove it.

On Monday, Michael Webber, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, tested positive for antibodies for Covid-19. While it's now been months since CES was held, he'd fallen ill shortly after coming back from the convention in January.

Webber told the publication that his "revelation comes at the same time that public health officials in Northern California, including Silicon Valley, reported three newly confirmed coronavirus deaths."

Seeing as how two of those deaths, one of them being Patricia Dowd (a woman in her 50s), happened in early February, it means the virus might've started spreading in the United States earlier than predicted.

Digital Trends reports the Consumer Technology Association confirmed that Dowd did not attend CES. But five people from her employer, Lam Research in the Bay Area, did attend the conference. It's unclear whether Dowd was in contact with them following CES.

As for Webber, APM Reports goes on to note that he wasn't the only one who felt sick shortly after attending CES. The publication spoke to multiple attendees who confirmed they also felt sick after the conference — though they're still waiting on results for antibody tests.

Additionally, the report highlights a number of tweets in which people complained about feeling under the weather just days after the conference ended.

At the time, reports of CES-related illness didn't seem like such a big deal, though. After all, CES is known for being hectic at all hours of the day. It's also common to get sick afterwards. Every year people complain about the dreaded "CES flu."

People are traveling, attending back-to-back meetings during the day and events at night, walking the floors of a packed convention center, and not sleeping enough. You're also shaking hands with everyone you meet and touching devices that hordes of other people are also touching. It's almost impossible notto get sick.

But this year, the "CES flu" was a little different because people appeared to be suffering from similar symptoms: fever, shortness of breath, dry cough, aches, and pains. You know, everything that comes with having Covid-19.

And, according to what's been gathered, the Vegas convention was an "ideal environment for the virus to spread." In addition to the United States, there are at least 63 other countries that attend CES each year.

APM Reports also says a little more than 100 people attended this year's conference from Wuhan, China — where the first outbreak was recorded towards the end of 2019.

But CES organizers told APM Reports there haven't been any confirmed cases of Covid-19 from the conference. They also have yet to be contacted by any health, government, or corporate officials with suspicions that someone might've been exposed to the virus at the conference.

While it's a start, it'll certainly take more research to figure out if CES actually helped to spread the disease throughout the country.

Regardless, CES is still pushing on. The CTA confirmed that next year's show is still scheduled as planned for January 2021.

Whether or not anyone attends after all of this remains to be seen.