Chinese New Year festivities start on Saturday for everyone but those dealing with the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, the capitol city of China’s Hubei Province. Customarily, family members journey to be together for the holiday, but travel in and out of Hubei Province was banned on Thursday by Chinese officials. Newly diagnosed patients died in two distant provinces in recent days. In the United States, a second verified case was confirmed during a Friday-morning press conference by the Centers for Disease Control ’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who heads its respiratory disease wing. The new Chicago case follows one previously identified in Washington State. Messonnier said 22 states had reported 63 possible U.S. cases.
Santa Barbara County’s public health officer, Dr. Henning Ansorg, has been on the phone with either the CDC or California Public Health clinicians on a daily basis since the outbreak was recognized. No cases are confirmed for California or Santa Barbara. He emphasized that of the 63 cases, 11 patients had a virus other than the one afflicting Wuhan; only two were diagnosed positive. But anyone who’s been to Wuhan — which has a population of 11 million — since the last weeks of December and develops flu or cold symptoms should call their health-care provider right away, Ansorg said. This is not an ailment to tough out. If it turns out to be the suspect virus, the people the patient has been in contact with also need to be monitored.
In a press call with reporters on Friday morning, health officials said the Chicago case involves a woman in her sixties who had traveled to Wuhan in late December and returned without symptoms on January 13. When she later developed fever and respiratory symptoms, she contacted her doctor, who, upon learning her travel history, immediately put a mask on her and sent her to a Chicago-area hospital. The woman had no close extended contact with anyone beyond her immediate household, Dr. Allison Arwady of Chicago Public Health told reporters, such as at large gatherings or on public transportation. The woman remained in the hospital for infection control, Arwady said, in an isolated room with her caregivers wearing protective gear.