Wuhan Virus Watch: Public Health Emergency Declared in L.A. County Over Coronavirus

Wuhan Virus Watch: Public Health Emergency Declared in L.A. County Over Coronavirus

Los Angeles County officials have officially declared a local public health emergency regarding the coronavirus as six new cases of the disease were revealed in the county in the last 48 hours.

Barbara Ferrer, director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said at a press conference with other county officials that leaders should expect more cases of #covid19 in the days ahead.

“If you’re sick with anything, we need people to stay home,” she said.

County officials stressed that they were acting out of “an abundance of caution” and not panic.

..The six new cases were confirmed Tuesday night with positive lab results and were linked to an “assumed known exposure,” according to Ferrer. A vaccine against the virus is not yet available, Ferrer said.

“There’s either a travel history to an area with an outbreak, there’s exposure to known travelers coming from areas where there’s an outbreak, or the person is in close contact with a confirmed case,” she said.

“This means as of today, we still don’t have known cases of community transmission.”

California reports its first COVID-19 death

California public health officials announced the first death in the state related to coronavirus.

Placer County Public Health officials announced that a patient who had tested positive for COVID-19 after returning from a cruise to Mexico last month died. The individual was an elderly adult with underlying health conditions and was the county’s second confirmed case of COVID-19, reported Tuesday night. Officials said that close contacts of the patient were being quarantined and monitored for the illness.

The person’s likely exposure occurred during travel on a Princess cruise ship that departed Feb. 10 from San Francisco and sailed to Mexico, returning Feb. 21, officials said.

The patient tested positive Tuesday and had been placed in isolation at Kaiser Permanente Roseville.

The person likely had minimal community exposure between returning from the cruise and arriving at the hospital by ambulance on Thursday, health officials said. Ten Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers and five emergency responders, who were exposed prior to the patient’s being put in isolation, are now in quarantine.

Research indicates that two types of coronavirus could be infecting people

Preliminary data on COVID-19 suggests that there are two separate types of the novel coronavirus. One strain is more aggressive than the other.

The preliminary study, conducted by researchers from Peking University’s School of Life Sciences and the Institute Pasteur of Shanghai under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revealed that the infection has evolved into two major types, designated L and S.

The L type, which is more aggressive, was more prevalent during the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan — the original epicenter of the virus — and accounted for about 70 percent of analyzed strains. About 30 percent of those strains were linked to the S type, considered less aggressive.

The prevalence of the L type decreased after early January, researchers found.

The S type, which is considered an older, “ancestral version” of the coronavirus, has become more common since then.

1,000 people told to self-quarantine after contact with infected ew York family

I suspect many more will be self-quarantining in the days to come.

A New York family of five who are friends with the Manhattan attorney who infected his wife, two children and a neighbor have now also tested positive to coronavirus – as 1,000 others that may have also come into contact with him are ordered to self-quarantine.

It comes as the US death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus rose to 11 on Wednesday as the number of confirmed cases across the country soared to more than 150.

…The New York cases increased to 11 on Wednesday after officials revealed that the 50-year-old infected Manhattan attorney had been linked to at least nine of the confirmed cases. A female healthcare worker who has not been linked to the attorney had earlier tested positive after returning from a trip to Iran.

The attorney’s wife, 20-year-old son, 14-year-old daughter and neighbor have all tested positive for coronavirus. His friend, the friend’s wife and their three children have also all since tested positive.

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