Was the "Sundance Plague" Actually Coronavirus?

Back in January, dozens of Sundance Film Festival attendees fell ill with what some dubbed “the Sundance Plague,” and as a new Hollywood Reporter piece points out, it’s possible that they were actually early, undiagnosed COVID-19 cases.

“We all had the same symptoms, all had the cough, all had trouble breathing at night,” actress Ashley Jackson, who attended the festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 27, told the publication. “We were all just miserable for three to four weeks.”

“I started texting other people who had been at Sundance, and one said, ‘Yo, we just started calling it the Sundance Plague,’ ” she added. “And then I see all these coronavirus stories, and I was like, ‘Whoa.’ ”

Paige McGarvin, another actress who attended the festival, says she was originally diagnosed with “flu-like symptoms and exacerbated asthma” in early February, but that her symptoms were consistent with those of the coronavirus. “I have never felt more miserable,” she said. “I couldn’t open my eyes. I put something over my face, and I couldn’t even sleep. My body just hurt.” At one point, she says, she texted her mother, “I can barely breathe when I cough; it’s like I can’t stop coughing enough to inhale.”

The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was confirmed in Washington on Jan. 21, two days before Sundance began, and microbiologist Dean Hart says it’s highly likely the virus spread to the festival. “Logic dictates that they most probably did have it,” Hart said. “With Sundance, you’ve got the perfect formula for this virus to really go to town and contaminate everybody.”

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