Fifteenth coronavirus case reported in the US
A 15th person has been confirmed infected with the potentially deadly novel coronavirus in a person evacuated last week from China and quarantined at a military base in Texas, U.S. health officials said Thursday.
“There will likely be additional cases in the coming days and weeks, including among other people recently returned from Wuhan,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, referring to the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak.
The latest case is among a group of people under a federal quarantine order at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas because of their recent return to the U.S. on a State Department chartered flight that arrived on February 7 from China.
The CDC said all people who lived or traveled in Hubei Province, China, which includes Wuhan, are considered at high risk of having been exposed to this virus and are subject to a temporary 14day quarantine upon entry into the United States.
More than 600 people who returned on State Department chartered flights from Wuhan remain under federal quarantine and are being closely monitored to contain the spread of the virus.
The 195 Americans who were on the first plane full of China evacuees were discharged from quarantine on Tuesday.
The latest U.S. case comes amid a spike in reports of cases out of China. The death toll in China reached 1,367, up 254 from the previous day, and the number of confirmed cases jumped 15,152 to 59,804.
The WHO on Thursday said that the spike in cases reported in China is due to improved testing methods that have confirmed suspected cases dating back weeks.
“This increase you all see in the last 24 hours is largely in part down to a change in how cases are being diagnosed and reported,” WHO’s Michael J. Ryan said at a Thursday news briefing. “We understand that most of these cases relate to a period going back over days and weeks and are retrospectively reported as cases since sometimes going back to the beginning of the outbreak itself.”
Ryan said that doctors in Hubei province can now confirm coronavirus cases based on chest imaging instead of laboratory confirmation, which takes longer.
“As we’ve seen this spike in cases reported in China this does not represent significant change in trajectory of the outbreak,” Ryan said.
The outbreak has spread to two dozen countries. The WHO said Thursday that a second person has died outside of China,
Late Wednesday, the CDC announced a 14th infection among evacuees quarantined at military bases in Southern California.
in Japan. The first fatality outside China was a man in the Philippines. The largest concentration of confirmed cases of the disease, which WHO has designated COVID-19, are 218 people aboard a Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan, Ryan said.
CDC reported Wednesday that an American has died in China.
In the U.S., there now are 15 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in seven states, most of them in California. There have been four cases reported around the Bay Area, two unrelated infections in Santa Clara County and a married couple from San Benito County. Five San Jose hospital workers who had been exposed to the first patient last month were cleared Wednesday to return to work.
Late Wednesday, the CDC announced a 14th infection among evacuees quarantined at military bases in Southern California.
The latest patient the CDC announced Thursday is currently isolated and receiving medical care at a Texas hospital.