Deadly virus hits Dane County
Coronavirus case is first in Wisconsin, 12th in US
MADISON - A Dane County resident has been diagnosed with the first Wisconsin case of the coronavirus that arose in China in late December and has killed nearly 500 people there.
At a news conference Wednesday in Madison, local officials said the person traveled directly from the Dane County Regional Airport to UW Hospital on Jan. 30. The person had been in Beijing recently and came into contact there with someone who had the virus, DHS officials said.
The person, who showed mild symptoms of infection, has been in isolation at home since being evaluated at UW Hospital, and will remain there until clear of the virus, the officials said.
Any health workers who were in contact with the patient will also be monitored for symptoms.
Local health officials learned of the diagnosis Wednesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state Department of Health Services, according to Janel Heinrich, director of Public Health Madison and Dane County, the city and county’s combined health department.
Heinrich and other officials declined to say where in Dane County the person lives or provide the person’s gender or age, other than to say they are an adult.
Amanda Kita-Yarbro, a Public Health epidemiologist, said officials are working to identify who else was on the flight to Dane County Regional Airport. Those people will be tested only if they exhibit symptoms, she said.
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said it is likely others in the community will eventually get the virus, but stressed that the risk to any individual
is low.
There is a much greater risk of getting the flu, he said.
“Given what we have seen in other parts of the globe, it’s reasonable to assume today’s news will not be the last positive case we hear about in our region,” he said.
He and other officials said they were confident they could handle the situation.
“We are ready for this,” said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.
Madison and Dane County have set up a hotline for updates on the corona virus — (608) 243-0587.
An all-campus message from UWMadison’s University Health Services said it wasn’t aware that this patient had visited the school except to visit the hospital. UHS believes the risk to the campus is low, the message said.
The CDC has received 10 tests from people in the state who presented symptoms and had recently traveled to China. Seven tests have come back negative, and state officials are waiting on the results of the remaining two.
Those being tested were instructed to isolate themselves from others, either in a hospital or at home, said Department of Health Services epidemiologist Tom Haupt.
As of Wednesday, the global number of confirmed cases had surpassed 24,000 in 24 countries, and the virus has prompted the World Health Organization and the U.S. to declare health emergencies. Outside China, confirmed infections totaled 191, and one death has been recorded in the Philippines.
The U.S. has 11 other confirmed cases of the coronavirus — in California, Arizona, Washington state, Illinois and Massachusetts. None has resulted in a death.
Health officials have noted that the risk of infection in the U.S. remains very low. For comparison, this year’s flu season had killed 26 people in Wisconsin as of Jan. 25, with more than 1,215 hospitalizations since September. Only 39% of Wisconsinites had received a flu vaccine.
But last week brought confirmation that the coronavirus has spread from person to person in the U.S., as a Chicago man was infected after being in close contact with his wife, who had been the second confirmed case in the U.S. after recently traveling to Wuhan.
Federal health officials have instructed 20 airports throughout the country to screen nearly all passengers disembarking from China for symptoms of the disease, including the major international hubs of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York’s John F. Kennedy, Chicago’s O’Hare and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson.
The U.S. announced last week that it would place Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan into a mandatory 14-day quarantine at military bases in California, a measure the U.S. hasn’t taken since suspected cases of smallpox in the 1960s.
WHO officials have estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2%, compared with the 10% of people who were killed by another coronavirus, SARS, during a 2002-03 outbreak.
“Given what we have seen in other parts of the globe, it’s reasonable to assume today’s news will not be the last positive case we hear about in our region.” Joe Parisi Dane County executive