Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat on Monday pointed out that influenza tests on several patients may have shown that the coronavirus spread in the United States earlier than expected.

“I swabbed them for flu, they came in with all the flu-like symptoms, the coronavirus symptoms. Chest pains, shortness of breath, body aches and looking back, I didn’t have the coronavirus test, I only had the flu test and they were coming back negative,” Nesheiwat told "America's Newsroom."

Noting that her patients showing flu-like symptoms may have actually had the coronavirus, Nesheiwat said that doctors were focused on detecting “influenza” during the January and February period.

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“We were in the middle of the influenza season and we were focused then on the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, so we weren’t really focused on ‘uh-oh, is this the coronavirus coming in from China.'”

Nesheiwat believes the coronavirus outbreak started in December.

“That’s an entire month where people were coming, flying from China, Italy, Europe which definitely could have brought it into the country a lot sooner than we expected.”

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Meanwhile, false-negative results from coronavirus tests are becoming an increasing concern. As doctors are trying to diagnose patients and address the outbreak, people are surprisingly showing coronavirus symptoms.

However, they are showing negative results from coronavirus tests, according to the Bloomberg Report.

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“While still more research is necessary to determine the true prevalence of such false-negative results, experts agree that the problem is significant. False negatives not only impede the diagnosis of disease in individual patients and an accurate understanding of the extent of its proliferation, but also risk patients who think they aren't ill further spreading the virus," the report states.