Apple co-founder bizarrely suggests he and his wife were ‘patient zero’ in U.S. for coronavirus

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak set Twitter off on Monday with a very weird tweet alluding to the outbreak.

“Checking out Janet’s bad cough,” stated Wozniak. “Started Jan. 4. We had just returned from China and may have both been patient zero in U.S.”

In his tweet, the Apple co-founder appeared to be saying that he and his wife had possibly contracted the coronavirus after visiting China. Wozniak also wondered if the two of them could have been patient zero in the U.S.

The tweet included a Swarm app check-in at the West Coast Sports Institute in Santa Clara, CA.

According to USA Today, Wozniak’s wife Janet later confirmed that she does not have the coronavirus. She has a sinus infection.

Mashable reached out to Wozniak for more information and will update this post if we hear back.

Wozniak’s claims came the same day officials that six people had died from the virus in Washington State. Twitter users were very confused.

The Apple co-founder joked about the coronavirus earlier this year on Twitter.

The appropriateness of that January tweet aside, it was clearly a joke. But Monday’s tweet, posted while the world prepares for an all-out pandemic, didn’t include any obvious sign that Woz was joking. 

Social media companies like have been working to purge coronavirus misinformation. Amazon has fake products claiming to “cure” the coronavirus. The World Health Organization even tried to use to debunk fake news about the virus.

With tens of thousands of people with the coronavirus around the world, the last thing people need is a famous person creating even more anxiety on Twitter.