Coronavirus updates: ‘Now is the time for U.S.’ to prepare for worldwide spread, CDC says
This story will be updated as news on the worldwide coronavirus outbreak develops. The latest update was made at 7 p.m. Feb. 25
It’s been a month since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States, a potentially deadly virus that causes the COVID-19 disease that broke out in China in December.
That man from Washington was healthy when he returned from China in mid-January. At the time of the first confirmed U.S. case, scientists in China reported 300 people there were infected with coronavirus and six people had died. Since then, the death toll has soared past 2,600 people, with all but 134 of them in China.
The World Health Organization in late January declared a public health emergency, saying the new coronavirus – the respiratory illness, with symptoms such as fever, coughing and shortness of breath – poses a global health risk.
The worldwide number of confirmed coronavirus cases topped 79,500 on Monday. More than 1,500 of those cases have been confirmed outside China. So far, there have been 53 cases in the U.S., including 36 of them evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Here’s what’s known so far about the impact of the coronavirus in this country and in Northern California:
CDC warning: Prepare for virus’ spread in U.S.
Federal health officials are sounding the alarm over the growing coronavirus outbreak telling cities and communities to prepare for the virus’ possible spread in the U.S.
With 53 U.S. cases confirmed to date, the message Tuesday was grim: the CDC, aggressively tackling the virus abroad, is “preparing for the potential for community spread in the United States.”
“Now is the time for US businesses, hospitals and communities to begin preparing for the possible spread of COVID-19,” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials posted Tuesday afternoon on the agency’s Twitter account.
The virus is not spreading in the U.S., officials emphasized, even as the virus moves closer to a global pandemic status, the agency said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries, the world moves closer toward ... worldwide spread of the new virus,” the CDC said in its Tuesday situation summary.
The immediate risk is low to people in the U.S., who are unlikely to be exposed to COVID-19, CDC officials said Tuesday.
Still, more coronavirus cases are “likely to be identified in the coming days, including more cases in the United States.” CDC officials added, saying that “person-to-person spread will likely continue to occur, including in the United States.”
CDC officials said their preparation effort will be widespread, from gauging how ready local and state governments are to respond to an outbreak; to reaching out to hospitals and health care networks to marshaling technical assistance and funding for states to help them more quickly prepare for and respond to the outbreak.
That also means drawing plans for child care facilities, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities to help them plan and prepare for local outbreaks.
Businesses will also have to gird for the virus’ effects on their workers; determine what to do when employees become ill; and adapt with telework and options for more flexible sick leave, the CDC said.
Researchers are working furiously to develop a vaccine but none have yet been approved to treat the virus.
Costa Mesa wins delay on virus decision
It’s a stalemate for now: Costa Mesa leaders and the federal government facing off over the housing of dozens of people affected by novel coronavirus in their city.
The Orange County city on Tuesday won a week’s extension of a federal court order blocking people infected with or exposed to COVID-19 from being transported from Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield to facilities in the city, Costa Mesa officials said in a Tuesday statement. Many of the people now housed at Travis were passengers aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess.
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton, on Feb. 21, granted the temporary restraining order on news that the federal government was considering moving as many as 50 people to Fairview Developmental Center, a now-shuttered mental health facility in the city, as early as Sunday,
Officials in this city of about 114,000 an hour south of Los Angeles say Costa Mesa and surrounding communities are too densely populated to safely house patients infected with the virus.
Costa Mesa city officials in the statement said they still haven’t received information they say is critical to helping keep the city’s residents safe.
They ticked off a slate of questions including testing and screening protocols; when patients will be moved on and off the facility; the condition of and plans for Fairview and for how long the Costa Mesa facility would be used.
“Bringing those infected into this densely populated area is simply the wrong approach,” Costa Mesa Mayor Kathleen Foley in the Tuesday statement, adding that “while we have nothing but compassion for those who are suffering from this virus, the health and welfare of our community is our top priority.”
State health and human services officials responded in a statement Monday that they were working closely with federal officials to “make sure they take every precaution in order to protect public safety” in seeking a California site to safely isolate coronavirus patients.
Answering an SOS from Wuhan
After moving to the Bay Area for work, thousands of graduates of universities in Wuhan, China, used social media platform WeChat to network with one other, but as the coronavirus outbreak ravaged the city that shaped them, they turned to WeChat to discuss what they could do to help.
Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tom Gong had a brother in Wuhan, and his wife had a sister there. On Jan. 23, he said, the Chinese government forbade anyone leaving the city without authorization.
“On that date, a group of friends who either grew up in the city or grew up together banded together,” Gong said. “We wanted to do something, and most urgently, we wanted to send medical supplies to Wuhan because the hospitals are overwhelmed, and the medical staffs – the doctors and nurses – they are short or even going without some supplies.”
Fortunately, Gong had experience working with nongovernmental organizations to get relief to residents of Sichuan, China, shortly after the devastating 8.5-magnitude earthquake hit that province in 2008. He contacted the nonprofit Direct Relief, which works to improve health care for people worldwide, without regard to politics.
“I knew they were a great organization,” Gong said, “so I said, ‘This type of organization, they will have the inventory. They distribute a lot of stock.’”
Shortly after Gong connected with Direct Relief, he said, Federal Express contacted the nonprofit to let them know it had a plane heading into China in just 36 hours. If they wanted to drop a shipment there, Gong said, they would have to get clearance through customs. But there was one other challenge: Before Direct Relief could deliver a donation, it would need a signed agreement with a hospital there.
Alumni in the group began working their contacts and managed to get an agreement executed before the plane took off, Gong said, and they also worked before and during the flight to make sure FedEx and Direct Relief had all the customs paperwork they would need. Finally, once the shipment got to the airport, Gong said, the alumni worked through their network to be able to get the supplies to a hospital in a city that had been walled off from the rest of the world.
The shipment, which arrived Jan. 31, contained hundreds of thousands of both N95 and surgical masks, according to Direct Relief. Just one day before it got there, Gong said, the hospital receiving the shipment had sent out an SOS to the medical community because they were out of stock.
The shipment wouldn’t have been possible without donations from HP, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Grandstream Networks, 3M and Amazon, according to a news release from Direct Relief, and FedEx did the shipment without charge.
Andrew MacCalla, the vice president of emergency response at Direct Relief, said: “We want the people in China who are facing a scary situation to know how many people are concerned about their welfare and are doing everything possible to help.”
Gong and other Wuhan alumni continue to work with Direct Relief, but they have also formed partnerships with the Christian medical relief organization MAP International in Georgia and with multinational companies such as fiber optic giant Amphenol Corp. to expand the range of items they are able to provide hospitals.
“We realized this is not going to end in a month or two,” Gong said. “We don’t know. It could be six months or more before things get back to normal. ... Our immediate goal is to fight the coronavirus. In the future, I think people could have a lot of psychological impact, and then economic impact. It’s hard to imagine. It’s never happened on this scale.”
Gong and the other Bay Area alums quickly formed a nonprofit they are calling Wuhan United, he said, because they plan to be in it for the long haul. So far, they’ve made seven shipments with more than 33 tons of items such as surgical masks, medical gloves, protective suits and shoe covers.
“The resources will come to the most efficient organizations,” Gong said, “and hopefully, we will be one of them.”
Sacramento County
On Friday afternoon, Sacramento County confirmed its first case of coronavirus in a traveler who traveled to China and returned to the United States on Feb. 2. The person experienced a mild fever, consulted their physician and coordinated a test through Sacramento County Public Health and the CDC. That person — who continues to be monitored by the county health department — is now asymptomatic, took precautionary measures during travel and has self-quarantined since returning.
California state worker exposed
Hours after Sacramento County announced the coronavirus test results, officials with the California Department of Justice sent a memo to staff stating that one of the agency’s employees had some contact with the individual the county was monitoring.
An employee “who works at the Broadway location was briefly in contact with a family member who recently returned from China and has been diagnosed with novel coronavirus (COVID-19),” the memo stated. “The Public Health Department is confident that our employee has had minimal exposure and is exhibiting no medical symptoms.”
The memo also noted that the public health department is working closely with the family on their 14-day quarantine. The county told The Bee that “close contacts are assessed and managed appropriately to protect the well-being of our community.”
Humboldt County case
Another person has been diagnosed with coronavirus in Humboldt County and is self-isolated at home along with a close contact who also traveled to China, according to the health officer there, Dr. Teresa Frankovich. The second individual was being tested for the virus, and Humboldt County officials said in a news release that it’s not surprising a case emerged there, since many county residents travel overseas.
Travis Air Force Base
The only cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have been among travelers who returned from overseas and their close contacts. On Feb. 5, 350 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak — arrived in two jetliners at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield, where most of them were quarantined.
CDC staff on Thursday lifted the quarantine on all evacuees who flew into the Air Force Base in Solano County two weeks ago. The agency also cleared 63 evacuees who arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar on the same date as the Travis group. One person at Miramar was diagnosed with COVID-19 and was under quarantine at a San Diego area hospital.
Quarantined cruise ship
Last weekend, 178 Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, one of the cruise ships that faced lengthy quarantines or denials to entry at ports. The CDC reported 144 others from the Diamond Princess went to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
The Diamond Princess docked in Japan and was put under quarantine with more than 600 passengers and crew. The CDC on Thursday said test results for the cruise ship passengers continued to trickle in from Japan even after their return, The Associated Press reported. Following screening procedures at Travis, 16 other passengers were sent to hospitals near Travis for isolation and further evaluation, the CDC said. None of the 16 newly hospitalized former passengers had confirmed CDC tests, so the federal agency was not saying they were positive for coronavirus.
Nebraska medical center
On Thursday, the CDC said six Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers were immediately sent for care at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in Omaha. Seven other passengers who arrived at Lackland also were sent to Nebraska, according to news reports.
The University of Nebraska Medical Center said on Thursday that the CDC confirmed 11 of the 13 patients had tested positive for the virus, but only a few of them showed symptoms, The Associated Press reported. The CDC said 57 Americans held at a Nebraska National Guard camp left Thursday, all of them in good health.
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: ‘Now is the time for U.S.’ to prepare for worldwide spread, CDC says."
