Health officials have confirmed the first case of the coronavirus in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. to seven and the third in the state of California.
The male patient, a resident of Santa Clara County, had recently traveled from Wuhan to Shanghai and arrived at the San Jose International Airport on January 24 when he fell ill. The man only left his home to seek medical care but was not hospitalized.
The man has had contact with “very few individuals” since his return. He currently remains at his home as he is not sick enough to be hospitalized, according to Dr. Sara Cody, director of Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department. Anyone who has had contact with the man and his household members will undergo a 14-day quarantine.
“We do not have evidence to suggest that the novel coronavirus is circulating in the Bay Area, in Santa Clara County, or really in Northern California,” Cody said. “Our assessment is that the public at large is still at low risk because this case was careful to self-isolate at home for the entire time since he returned from China.”
Earlier today, the Trump Administration announced that they will temporarily bar foreigners from entering the U.S. if they have been to China within the last 14 days. U.S. citizens who have traveled to China’s Hubei province within the last 14 days will be quarantined for up to two weeks. The rule is scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. EST on Sunday.
John Hopkins University’s Center of System Science and Engineering recently released a map tracking all confirmed coronavirus cases in realtime. So far, nearly 12,000 people have been affected and over 250 have died, while 252 have recovered as of this writing.
The U.S. has declared the virus a public health emergency, issuing do not travel alerts for Americans thinking of traveling to China and urging citizens already in China to “consider departing using commercial means,” according to The Weather Channel.
