Third US case of coronavirus confirmed in California: health officials

The third U.S. case of the brand new coronavirus has been confirmed in Orange County, California, the OC Health Care Agency’s Communicable Disease Control Division introduced in a press launch Sunday.

 

“The OC Health Care Agency’s (HCA) Communicable Disease Control Division obtained affirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this night that an Orange County, California case has examined optimistic for the novel coronavirus,” the company mentioned.

The affected person has been described as a traveler from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the illness’s outbreak — and is in isolation in a hospital in “good situation,” in accordance with the discharge.

The new respiratory sickness has to this point sickened greater than 1,975 folks and killed 56, the vast majority of that are in Wuhan.

The HCA mentioned it is going to be monitoring any shut contacts, however that there’s “no proof that person-to-person transmission has occurred in Orange County.”

According to the CDC’s steerage, individuals who have “informal contact with a case” — as an illustration, it says, in the identical grocery retailer or movie show — “are at minimal danger of creating an infection.”

“The present danger of native transmission stays low,” the HCA mentioned, echoing the CDC’s prior statements that the U.S. public shouldn’t be at excessive danger of transmission, although it mentioned the state of affairs “continues to evolve quickly.”

The first two U.S. instances of the virus have been a Washington state man in his 30s and later an Illinois lady in her 60s who had each traveled to Wuhan, at present reported to be in steady situation at space hospitals.

US evacuating Americans from Wuhan

The U.S. embassy in Beijing on Sunday issued a discover saying the U.S. consulate in Wuhan will evacuate its workers and a few personal residents on a constitution flight Tuesday to San Francisco, although seat numbers can be restricted. Priority can be given to these “at higher danger” from the virus, the embassy mentioned, which may progress to pneumonia and is a higher menace to the aged and other people already affected by respiratory issues.

Chinese authorities have restricted journey for 17 cities in its central Hubei province, the place Wuhan is positioned, an space encompassing greater than 50 million folks. Wuhan itself — the place the virus first appeared, reportedly in a seafood market additionally promoting unlawful wildlife — has a inhabitants of 11 million. Hubei on Sunday shut down inter-city and inter-province buses in an effort to curb the outbreak.

This map exhibits the newest unfold of the coronavirus

On Saturday, Hong Kong chief Carry Lam declared a virus emergency within the metropolis of seven.three million, halting all official journeys to mainland China, extending faculty cancellations and scrapping official plans for the Lunar New Year, China’s busiest journey week.

Australia confirmed its first 4 instances of the virus on Saturday and expects extra, its well being authorities mentioned, because the nation is a well-liked vacation spot for Chinese vacationers. While the vast majority of confirmed coronavirus instances and deaths are in mainland China, the virus has additionally been recognized in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal, France, Australia and the U.S.

Fears over the illness’s affect on the worldwide financial system despatched shares falling on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 170 factors.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has to this point declined to declare the illness a world well being emergency, saying it wants extra information. The virus is at present spreading by human-to-human contact and in medical settings, the group mentioned.

Coronaviruses are a big household of viruses that are likely to primarily have an effect on animals, however can evolve and unfold to people. Symptoms for the pressure at present shifting across the globe embody fever, coughing and shortness of breath, which may progress to pneumonia. Little is at present recognized about this new pressure of coronavirus, and the medical neighborhood has but to develop a treatment for it.

The coronavirus household additionally contains the Sars virus (extreme acute respiratory syndrome), whose nine-month outbreak in 2003 contaminated greater than 8,000 folks and killed 775, largely in China.