County’s 1st coronavirus case fully recovered

Man became first confirmed Bay Area sufferer on Jan. 31

Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department said Thursday that the man who was the first confirmed local person infected with the deadly novel coronavirus has fully recovered and has been released from his self- quarantine at home.

“He was never sick enough to be hospitalized,” county health spokeswoman Marianna Moles said. “He isolated at home and was monitored by public health staff for the duration of his isolation.”

Santa Clara County health officials had announced the man’s confirmed coronavirus infection Jan. 31, describing him only as

“an adult male resident of the county” who recently traveled to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated, and became ill upon returning home.

County officials said the man was seen at a local clinic and hospital but was never sick enough to require hospitalization and was “self-isolating at home” while they monitored his condition.

The man was one of two people in Santa Clara County who was confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. Two days later, county health officials confirmed a second, unrelated novel coronavirus infection in someone they described only as “an adult female” who recently had traveled to Wuhan and arrived Jan. 23 to visit family in the county.

Santa Clara County health officials have said she has stayed home since she arrived except for two occasions when she sought outpatient medical care. She was never sick enough to be hospitalized and also has been regularly monitored. She was still under isolation Thursday, Moles said.

Five San Jose hospital workers were sent home as a precaution after they were exposed last month to the county’s first coronavirus case at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose. They were cleared to work Feb. 12 after showing no symptoms over 14

days, health officials said.

Health officials also are monitoring 300 county residents who are healthy but face an increased risk of acquiring the new coronavirus illness because they traveled in mainland China within the past two weeks, Dr. Sara Cody, county health director, said Wednesday.

They have been told to “self- quarantine,” stay home, limit contact with others and report their health status to county authorities. Moles said the department continues to work closely with health care providers, hospitals and others to monitor the novel coronavirus. Currently, she said, there is no evidence that the virus is circulating in Santa Clara County, and risk to the public remains low.

Two other Nor thern California cases were confirmed Feb. 2 in San Benito County, a husband and wife both age 57. San Benito County health officials said the husband recently traveled from Wuhan, but his wife did not and was believed to have been infected through him. They later were transferred to the University of California San Francisco hospital for a higher level of care.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health said Feb. 14 that the couple were discharged from UCSF “in good health” but would not say whether they had fully recovered and been cleared to resume their normal lives. Shawn Merillat, a spokesman for San Benito County’s Health Department, said Thursday the agency had nothing to report on the couple’s condition.

The virus, from the same family of pathogens that caused the SARS and MERS outbreaks, has infected more than 75,000 people in more than two dozen countries and has killed more than 2,100, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of cases and deaths from the disease WHO calls COVID-19 have been in central China’s Hubei province, which includes Wuhan.

There have been more than 1,000 infections outside of China and eight deaths from the disease — two aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship anchored off Japan, two in Iran and one each in the Philippines, South Korea, France and Japan. An American is among the dead in China.

Before the cruise ship outbreaks in the U. S. health officials had reported 15 confirmed cases.

As of Wednesday, 15 more Americans evacuated from the cruise ship and flown back to the U. S. tested positive for the virus and are believed to be infected. Twelve of them have been hospitalized in Northern California, and three others were sent to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Also, the San Francisco Department of Public Health said Thursday that a person from the cruise ship who was evacuated to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield is being treated at a hospital in the city. That person has no symptoms, the department said, but had tested positive for the virus in Japan before leaving for the U. S.

“The hospital is taking all appropriate precautions for patient and staff safety,” the San Francisco Public Health Department said.

The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not responded to questions about whether any of the other confirmed coronavirus cases have fully recovered.

But the Snohomish

HealthDistrict in the state of Washington reported Thursday that a man there who was identified as the first confirmed U. S. novel coronavirus case also has made a full recovery.

“Our patient has been released from home isolation,” said Snohomish health district spokeswoman Kari Bray. “He’s now considered fully recovered and free to go about normal activities.”

Bray said the man had been hospitalized with the disease and then remained under home isolation and observation “until we were confident he had recovered” late Wednesday. The decision to declare theman fully recovered involved retesting the man for illness and was made in consultation with Washington state health officials and the CDC, she said.

According to the University of California San Francisco, latest estimates based on the reported number of cases and deaths suggests the novel coronavirus death rate is about 2%. For comparison, SARS — Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome — had a death rate of about 10%, infecting 8,096 people and killing 774 in a 2003 outbreak. Seasonal influenza has a death rate of 0.1%, UCSF said.

UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Charles Chiu said that based on published reports, once a person is exposed and becomes infected, the incubation period before the onset of symptoms is about five days, although it can vary fromtwo to 11 days.

Chiu said flulike symptoms are oftenmild at first and that some patients recover without the symptoms becoming more serious. But for those who get worse, the fourth day after the onset of symptoms is usually when they seek medical care for shortness of breath and early pneumonia, and they may become critically ill by day seven. After the 11th day, Chiu said, most patients who survive are on their way to recovery.

For comparison, SARS— Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—had a death rate of about 10%, infecting 8,096people and killing 774 ina 2003 outbreak. Seasonal influenza has a death rate of 0.1%, University of California San Francisco said.