The Seattle Flu Study was started in 2017 and led by the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine (a collaboration between the University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center). A chief goal is the surveillance of respiratory pathogens active in the city. For winter 2019-2020, the Seattle Flu Study planned to survey and swab people in Seattle to see where and how the common flu virus was circulating in the community. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the head of the study, Dr. Helen Chu, pressed state and federal officials to let her test her samples for COVID-19. She was repeatedly refused and eventually decided to do it without government approval. These tests showed that COVID-19 was already circulating in the community much more widely than previously believed. These results helped push the city and state to act sooner and more decisively to control the pandemic and is seen as an important moment in the early history of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.